


Red Hearts on White Paper

by GlassAlice



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adopted Keith (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Normal High School, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Emo Keith (Voltron), Fluff, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, M/M, Mild Language, Shiro has both arms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 21:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12094011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassAlice/pseuds/GlassAlice
Summary: Another stupid love letter. This was just getting ridiculous. Keith stuffed the thing in his back pocket, grasping his books from their place in the shadowed cavern of his locker, and slamming it shut with a bang. He wasn’t even sure when it had happened. Keith had always been a loner, and that had served him well his first year, but even his steely demeanor was no longer keeping the masses at bay.Keith made a beeline for the nearest trash can. Crumpling the letter in his hand, he tossed it inside.





	Red Hearts on White Paper

**Author's Note:**

> This whole fic has been re-written! If you've read it before, please enjoy the new scenes and expanded emotions! If this is your first time here, welcome and enjoy the emotional rollercoaster that is Keith <333

The bell chimed an echo across campus, and students steadily flowed out into the empty hallways, cresting against the wall of lockers like a tidal wave. Keith did his best to steer through the sea of students as he made his way to the end of the hall. Finally scrabbling to his locker and tugging it open, Keith frowned as a small ivory envelope fluttered to the ground at his feet. Bending at his knees, he plucked it from the floor and turned it over in his hands. It was blank on both sides, save for a lone red heart sticker holding the flap closed. The breathy groan he released was completely involuntary.

Normally, Keith’s locker was visited by these paper fancies only on occasion. But this? It was the fifth one this month! This was just getting ridiculous. Keith stuffed the loathsome thing in his back pocket, grasping his books from their place in the shadowed cavern of his locker, and slamming it shut with a bang. 

_So much for flying under the radar_. 

He wasn’t even sure when they started. Keith had always been a loner, which served him well his first year. He had a tendency to keep people at arm’s length, and he liked it that way. It let him maintain the few friendships he actually wanted without interfering with his school or life. And above all, it kept Keith from having to deal with any unrequited romantic feelings from his peers. They didn’t really know him, anyway. But even his steely demeanor, it seemed, was no longer sufficient to keep this unknown courier at bay. 

Keith made a beeline for the nearest trash can. Crumpling the letter in his hand, he tossed it inside. 

“I just don’t get it,” Keith muttered to himself as he trudged away, shoving his shoulder into the heavy metal door as he exited the main building and strode out into the too-bright sun.

\---------

A figure stood poised around the corner, watching the scene unfold with interest, then turned away in a swift motion, a pair of shoulders slumping with a heavy sigh. Cramming both hands into deep pockets, they kicked half-heartedly at the wall and turned down the corridor. It wasn’t long before the figure was washed into the sea of shuffling students. 

\---------

The bright winter sun beat down on Keith in the warmth of the afternoon; there was never a real break from the heat in a desert, just a lull. The red flannel shirt he used as a jacket was already making him sweat, so he pulled it off and tied it around his waist.

“Hey, man!” a familiar voice called out. Keith looked up, peering over the heads of his fellow students surging out onto the sidewalks to locate the face that matched the voice. A long-fingered hand landed weightily on his shoulder and his eyes followed the warm brown surface, half covered by a wooly slate sleeve, up to meet the tall, smiling boy to his left. The lanky boy pulled his arm back and hiked the soft, black hems of his knit sweater up to his elbows as he fell into step next to Keith.

 _Is he not_ hot _in that sweater?_ Keith mused.

“Hey, Lance,” he replied, as the pair dodged around the clumps of students that littered the walkways or paused to talk in the grass just off the sidewalk. Keith glared up and up as Lance stepped even closer to him to avoid the express lane, a press of students heading for the buses on the west side of the school. Keith’s neck had to crane to meet Lance’s eyes, a blue so dark they seemed to hold in a raging sea. Keith didn't like the way Lance towered over him, and from this distance the altitude difference was impossible to ignore. 

“Busy?” Lance queried as he adjusted a worn-out blue snapback that was very much against the school dress code. “Me ‘n Hunk are heading to Sonic for some tots.”

Keith paused his stride, eyes squinted and head tilting as he puzzled it out. The abruptness of his sudden halt caught Lance by surprise; the taller boy pulled up, but not in time to avoid Keith’s shoulder. He rolled his eyes pointedly at the gentle bump, but Lance just grinned, shrugging in response. 

“Well, Shiro was going to take me to a car show at five,” Keith offered, his ruminations complete. He stepped forward, half carried by the crowd at his back, which began to dwindle as students made their way off the grounds as quickly as possible.

“Just have him pick you up at my house,” Lance countered easily.

A small muscle tugged Keith’s lip up away from his chin, but he pulled out his phone and shot a quick text to Shiro. Lance took out his phone in unison, and began checking Twitter while they waited. Keith stared fixedly at his phone, feigning busyness; he refreshed his chat with Shiro obsessively so at least it would look like he was doing something. 

Keith’s eyes wandered past the phone screen and stared intently at his foot next to Lance’s. The toe of Keith’s converse shoe was bumped up into the side of Lance’s white canvas sneakers. They were scuffed and had pen doodles marking the side in a rainbow of gelled colors. Keith peeked out of the corner of his eye to scan up intentionally ripped jeans to the place where Lance’s too-large sweater met his hip, the tails of his collared shirt peeking out of the woven fabric. Keith cursed at how easily stylish Lance was. 

Keith jumped as a thick arm landed solidly on his shoulders. Hunk squeezed his large frame between two distracted boys.

“Hey, guys!” bellowed the hulking Hunk, “Ready for tot time?!”

“Keith’s still waiting to hear back from Shiro,” Lance replied absently, eyes glued to his screen. 

Keith’s eyes softened, and he smirked at Hunk with a shrug of his shoulders. “We need to see if he can pick me up from Lance's place after instead.”

Hunk nodded his head knowingly. “I'm sure Shiro will understand. Anything for the tots!”

Lance chuckled warmly, eyes breaking away from his phone, his gaze locking with Keith’s, “I'm sure he'll pick you up, let's just start walking over.”

Keith’s lips pursed, and he took a final look at his text messages before nodding his assent.

“Yes!” exclaimed Hunk. “Let's go!” Hunk grasped the pair tightly, hauling them toward the campus soccer field so their path would cut across to the plaza next to school. 

“Where’s Pidge, anyway? Not coming?” Keith looked between the other two boys quirking an eyebrow.

Lance spun around so he was walking backwards and faced Keith, “Grounded,” he solemnly replied as he crossed himself, “May the lord bless our weekends and keep us ever from grounding: The Lord make the sun to shine upon us, and grace us with fabulous tans:” Hunk shouted ‘Hallelujah’ as Lance raised both hands in the air, “The Lord lift us out of detention, and give us no homework.” Lance brought his hands down to his lips in a prayer pose and bowed his head.

“Amen!” shouted Hunk, clenching his fist in a perfect mirror of the success kid meme.

Keith inwardly sighed at the display. _Lance is so dramatic sometimes._

“So… what did Pidge do, exactly?” Keith asked, raising an eyebrow at Hunk rather than suffer through Lance’s melodrama.

“Hacked into the school website and changed all the pictures in the database to memes,” offered Hunk. Lance nodded solemnly along with Hunk’s explanation.

“That was Pidge? Wait, did the school find out it was them?” Keith was impressed and concerned, but certainly not surprised. 

“Nah, just their dad. He laughed so hard,” Hunk chortled. “But in the end, Pidge still got grounded. Apparently ‘funny is not the same as right’,” Hunk said, scrunching his pointer and middle fingers into air quotes. 

“Wow, I didn't hear that part,” Lance began, apparently a bit vexed that his rumor mill had failed him. “When did you find that out?” He spun back around and placed himself between Keith and Hunk, walking in a line. There wasn’t quite enough room on the sidewalk, so Lance’s shoulder and elbow bumped into Keith with every other step.

“I was there,” Hunk shrugged. “We were working on our robotics project.” 

The Sonic came into view and the group stepped off the sidewalk, cutting directly through the parking lot. 

Keith thought he glimpsed a brief frown pulling on Lance’s features, or perhaps he didn’t? In a flash, all Keith could see was Lance’s usual crooked grin. They passed a row of empty parking spaces as they walked toward the main building, stepping under the awning to meet the giant menu situated directly adjacent to a lone blue mesh table. 

“Okay guys, THE most important question of your life…. how many tots are we getting? I got like,” Lance opened his wallet and sifted through its contents, “six bucks, and I’m craving a shake. I'll share of course,” he bargained, “if you guys share your tots.”

“I’ve got about four bucks,” Hunk offered. “I went a little crazy at lunch.”

Keith pulled out his wallet, “I have ten dollars, but I have to save five of that for the car show tonight.”

“So, everyone okay with... three large tots and a large Sonic blast to share?” Lance queried after some quick calculations. 

“Aw, man,” Hunk moaned, “now I wish I hadn't spent so much on lunch.” 

“Three is more than enough,” Keith chided, swapping his ten for Lance’s five, “especially with a shake.”

“Fine,” huffed Hunk, but added his cash to the pile. Hunk wiggled a finger at Lance. “You better make sure we get extra ketchup.”

“Don’t worry, I got you fam,” Lance said, whacking Hunk’s back before pressing the button and placing their order. Lance sorted out their money and they all settled down on the blue mesh bench under the overhang, waiting for their food. Soon a girl in pigtails and a white, grease-stained shirt skated over to their table, setting down a large tot in front of each boy. 

“Who got the Sonic blast?” she asked with a wide smile.

Lance raised his hand, “Can we get two more spoons and some more ketchup? Like, a _lot_ more?” He shot a wink at Hunk.

The girl offered a practiced smile and replied “Sure!” with just a bit too much pep, then skated back into the little box she came from. 

Lance popped off the plastic lid of the shake and placed it in the middle of the table. 

“So I heard McKinney’s class is getting a sub. And they're hot. Like, Tracey-the-Lit-assistant hot.” Lance made a lewd gesture. 

Hunk rolled his eyes and opened his mouth, but before anyone could comment the pigtailed girl skated over with their spoons and extra ketchup. 

Lance flicked his eyes down at the girl's name tag, then lifted a sculpted eyebrow. “Thanks Nyma,” he said, picking up one of the spoons and wiggling it in her direction, “That’s a beautiful name. Say, are you sure _you're_ not a Sonic blast? Because I want to spoon _you_.”

Nyma’s smile strained and she turned pointedly toward Keith, ignoring Lance, “Just push the button if there's anything else you need,” she offered Keith, then skated away. Keith saw Nyma roll her eyes deeply as she turned around, peppy customer service smile dripping off her face immediately once she thought they couldn’t see. Keith shook his head.

“Dude, do you _have_ to do that everywhere we go?” Hunk moaned, carefully distributing the contents of one order of tots between the other two containers and dumping ketchup into the newly emptied receptacle.

“Hey, you can't catch a fish if you don't throw a _line_ ,” Lance smirked at his own quip. He wiggled his eyebrows at Hunk with a, “Huh? Huh? Get it? ‘Line’?”

“Don't waste your breath Hunk.” Keith shook his head, rolling his eyes and purposefully ignoring Lance, “Lance is hopeless. He's never liked anyone seriously since I've met him.” 

“I have, too!” Lance pouted, shoving a tot so hard into the ketchup that it crumbled into a pile of tot chunks. He abandoned the tot to its red deathbed and turned instead to the chocolatey oreo goodness in the middle of the table. 

“Yeah right, Lance, good one,” Hunk laughed heartily, fishing out the abandoned tot crumbles with a grimace, “I've known you since we were four and you've never stayed serious for longer than a week.” He tossed the potato corpse into the trash without moving, “Nothin’ but net!” he crowed. Lance high-fived Hunk without looking and a pang of jealousy shot through Keith at their easy friendship. Keith still felt stiff around his friends, still a little removed, even after all this time. Not that he could really help it, but keeping people at arm’s length did have its distinct disadvantages.

“I'll have you know that I've had a crush for two years, now.” Lance's eyes flashed up to Keith's for a second, then they bored down through the slats of the table at his shoelaces before drawing up and digging back into the ice cream with vigor. “They just don't like me back, so what am I supposed to do? ” Lance waved his icy spoon at Hunk, shaking it around as he shrugged, and a bit of chocolate fell off. Keith followed the ice cream with his eyes as it slid between the holes in the table onto the concrete. 

Keith bit down on a tot with a creased brow. He couldn't shake that odd look Lance shot him. Maybe this mysterious crush was someone he knew? It made sense; he’d met Lance during the middle of his sophomore year, so they’d known each other for about two years, now. Chances were good that Keith knew the person in question.

“Aww, you're blushing, Lance!” Hunk poked a finger into Lance's cheek. Pressing a little harder, Hunk feigned hurt, “How come you've never told me you had a crush?” He patted the moping boy’s cheek roughly, causing him to wince. 

Keith averted his eyes at the display. Hunk and Lance’s camaraderie was something he didn’t share with anyone in the group, and especially not with _Lance._ “Yeah, that certainly doesn’t make sense,” a perturbed Keith offered. “How did _your_ loud mouth keep this a secret for two years? Unless, you're lying to us.” Keith kept his face neutral as his brain worked overtime. Who would Lance have met that Keith knew in the last two years? The only person Keith had introduced to Lance was his brother. 

Dread sank rapidly into the depths of his stomach. 

_Shiro._

Lance crossed his arms and huffed, “I can keep a secret if I want to. I just don't usually want to. Besides, you know them, so I didn't want it to get out.” Lance looked down and carefully rearranged his tots in their cardboard basket. 

Keith felt sick. It _was_ Shiro. He knew it, why else would he look at him like that? Lance had practically idolized Shiro from before they even met. And why wouldn’t he? Shiro was a legend in every class and sport he attempted--Class President, leader of the debate team, Lacrosse captain, and the recipient of four different scholarships for exceptional performance in academics at the college of his choice. He was the best at everything he attempted. But Shiro was dating _Allura_. Perhaps that explained why Lance was so tight-lipped the past two years. In a similar situation, Keith was absolutely certain he would avoid telling his friends about a potential romantic interest, especially if said interest was already in a relationship. But it didn't explain why the idea irked Keith so much. Was he that protective of his adoptive brother? 

Keith pushed the thought away. Now wasn’t the time for personal reflection. Now was the time to get the truth out of Lance, “So you haven't told them?” Keith pressed. 

“Well... kinda?” his voice rose, the reply more question than answer. Lance scrunched his face, looking up at him through dark lashes, and Keith was shocked to see a layer of anger and frustration beneath those furrowed brows. Keith glared back, frustration of his own boiling over without explanation. Well, Keith should be annoyed, shouldn’t he? Lance knew Shiro was taken.

“What do you mean ‘kinda’?” Hunk pried, interrupting their staring contest, “Like, you either told them or you didn't. There's no ‘kinda’. ”

Lance’s gaze shifted back to Hunk and he sighed, “It's complicated. I told them but they don't know.” Lance pushed the tots toward Hunk and slumped forward, crossing his arms and resting them on the table. 

“Wait, how is that possible?” Keith’s eyebrows drew together, a tight knot creasing the middle of his forehead. 

“It just _is_ , okay?” he replied, shooting Keith an angry look, but he thought he saw hurt in Lance’s face before his eyes shifted back to the table. Lance picked at the blue plastic on the table with a buffed nail, “I don't wanna talk about it.”

Keith blinked at the exchange. Perhaps he had pushed too far. Keith pushed away his frustration, a wave of guilt bubbling up into his stomach. It was _his_ brother Lance liked, and he hadn’t been supportive in the face of Lance’s two year struggle. Keith took a deep breath, trying to control his emotions. 

“Look, Lance, it doesn't matter who it is. Even if they’re someone we know, even if they’re part of the group, even if they’re a friend or--” Keith paused and sucked in a breath, “--or a relative. We're your friends, always.”

Hunk nodded, “Yeah, man, we're here for you. Even when you're being a girl-crazy jerk. Which is basically your default setting.” Hunk smirked, reaching a hand to shake Lance by his shoulder. The lanky boy reluctantly smiled in return and Hunk dropped his hand back to his side. “I mean, we’re still gonna point it out, though. That you're a jerk, I mean.”

Lance sniggered, but it sounded forced to Keith’s ears, “Yeah. Doesn't matter anyways. The person in question doesn't like me more than a friend. I'm absolutely one-hundred percent sure.” Lance swiped his bladed hand in front of him in a diagonal chop to emphasize its finality. 

Keith’s brow furrowed and his eyes softened, his lips pursing as he looked at his dejected friend, and Lance visibility shrunk into himself. Lance was right, Shiro certainly didn’t see Lance as anything more than Keith’s friend. And he would never cheat on Allura.

“How do you know?” Hunk asked. 

“Well, I mean, I confessed right?” he sighed. Lance forced a smile and his voice brightened unnaturally, “But they rejected me. Kinda. I guess. So it's whatever, now.” Lance started in on the tots with new vigor, biting into the potato army as if severing their crispy hashed heads. Speckles of leftover tot corpses filled up the paper tray as the massacre continued. 

Keith let whatever that last sentence was supposed to mean go, and nodded at Lance in agreement. There was a time and place to correct his grammar, but this was not it. But the nod seemed to cause Lance to attack his tray even more viciously. Perhaps he should remain still and silent for the time being. After all, Keith was certain that Shiro would have let Lance down easy, shut him down before Lance could confess fully. Was it possible that was what Lance had meant by confessing but not confessing? He’d have to ask Shiro about it later to spare Lance any further embarrassment.

Keith wiped his hands on a thin napkin and stood up. “We’d better start walking to your house if we want to get there before Shiro picks me up.” He cringed as he mentioned his brother. 

_Way to rub it in Keith._

The others nodded and the trio stood in unison, gathering the mess into the trash cans. Hunk waved goodbye to both of them before walking in the opposite direction toward his house. Both Lance and Hunk lived right next to the school, but on opposite sides. Keith was the only one who lived far away; his house lay at the edge of the school boundaries. 

Keith fell in step behind Lance, using the taller boy as a sun shade. He bit at his thumb, scraping the last of the black polish off the nail. Keith spit a flake of polish onto the sidewalk and shoved his hands in his pockets as he scoured his brain for something to talk about, anything. 

Keith squinted at the other boy’s back, hoping for some sort of inspiration. Lance’s silhouette was dark against the setting sun, his chocolate brown hair dyed an inky black by the golden rays except at the illuminated tips. Lance’s shoulders were slumped forward and his long legs kept a pace too fast for Keith’s normal stride. He knew he’d upset Lance, but this was a bit much. He grumbled as he double-stepped to keep up.

_C’mon Keith, just because he’s being an ass doesn’t mean you have to be. He’s just upset. Talk to him, damn it._

He gathered his courage and opened his mouth, blurting out the first thing he could think of, “So, that thing Pidge did was pretty cool, right?” 

_Lame._

Lance stopped in his tracks and spun around, facing Keith. “Yeah, sure was,” he spat before turning back around and speeding up. 

Keith sighed, _Well, that didn’t work_.

He jogged to catch up, reaching out to grab at the boy in front of him, “Hey! Lance, wait.” Lance slowed his pace but didn’t look back.

Keith caught the knit of Lance’s thick sweater and tugged the other boy to a halt, “Don’t worry about that stuff at Sonic, okay?” 

Lance tilted his head until Keith could see one dark blue eye glare at him, “Yeah, whatever Keith, I’m over it.” Lance turned to fully face him with a wide smile that showed too many teeth, the skin pulled tightly over his cheeks.

Keith snatched his hand back, stepping away to try and distance himself from that monstrous sneer. 

Keith floundered for a distraction, his eyes planted firmly on a crack in the concrete unable to find the courage to face the clear contempt on Lance's face, “I just got the GameFlux 4.”

Keith peeked through his thick lashes which distorted Lance’s face in a haze. He watched the manic expression melt, his smile softening, and though Keith recognized the humoring expression, a condescending smile was better than scorn and revulsion. 

“Oh yeah? Which game did it come with?” Lance started walking again, but he was matching Keith’s pace this time.

“Killbot Phantasm: Generations. It’s supposed to be a remake of the classic Killbot Phantasm One that I used to watch Shiro play.” Keith rolled his eyes, “I’m excited to get to play it for once instead of watch it.” He smiled up at Lance.

“I never played One. I had Two, but never finished it. Is Arcus in that one?” Lance stopped in front of a crosswalk and pushed the walk button before leaning against the pole.

Keith stopped a little too far from Lance, the distance making it hard to talk over the traffic, “No, his first game is Two.” Keith shook his head.

Lance frowned and pushed off the pole, reaching forward to tug on Keith’s flannel. Keith stumbled a little at the unexpected force and collided with Lance’s side, “I can’t hear you over there, dummy. ” Lance huffed.

Keith’s shoulder was pressed up against Lance’s and he refused to move a hair. He stood stiffly as he soaked in the warmth through their jackets, “ _I said,_ he’s not in One, Two is his first game.” Keith’s knuckles brushed Lance’s lightly as their arms hung side by side; Keith held his breath.

“Shame, Arcus is the reason I even played it to begin with.” Lance trailed off in thought as the pedestrian signal flashed white, indicating that it was safe to cross, “I wonder what even happened to my KP2?” Keith let out the breath he was holding as a single finger brushed the back of his hand, tracing its entire length before disappearing off the edge. His eyes widened as he looked down at their hands, but all that remained was residual warmth, quickly dissipating into the air. Keith peeked up at Lance, only to be greeted with the side of the taller boy’s face, eyes firmly fixed on the road.

 _Did Lance do that on purpose? No, who are you kidding? It was an accident. He was just standing close and our hands brushed. Completely coincidental._ Keith shook his head to clear it as Lance pushed away from Keith and stepped into the crosswalk.

Keith waited a breath before he followed Lance, the loss of contact turning his arm cold.

Soon they turned into Lance’s neighborhood. A few of Lance's younger siblings were already home and in view, playing in the street as they approached. 

“Mamá, I'm home!” Lance called as they walked through the door. “And Keith is here!”

His mother rounded the corner to greet them, “Welcome home, mijo. Keith, it's good to see you! Are you staying for dinner?” Her smile was wide and welcoming, and Keith was struck again by how familiar that sweet expression was. It was too bad that Lance insisted on wearing a cocky grin 24/7; it was clear where Lance inherited his true smile from. 

“Keith is going to a car show soon, Mamá, he's just here till Shiro picks him up.” Lance inched back a couple steps toward the hallway, grabbing at Keith’s flannel and tugging.

“Well, if you decide to stay there's plenty! And mijo, I better not see any trash in this house by dinner time. And no making Nicky clean it,” she scolded with her finger. 

Lance nodded, already pulling Keith to his room by a sleeve. He called out over his shoulder as they rounded the corner, “Yeah, Mamá, I'll do it after Keith leaves.”

Keith managed to keep his feet under him as he was dragged down the hall to Lance's room. He'd been there many times; Lance’s house had become their group’s frequent after school hangout spot since he lived so close. Not to mention the appeal of Maria’s cooking.  
Keith settled into his usual place on the floor and Lance flopped down on a blue beanbag.

“How long ‘til Shiro picks you up?” Lance asked, eyes fixed on the ceiling. 

Keith checked his phone, “It looks like he's leaving in a few minutes, he just has to drop off Allura first.” Keith realized he'd mentioned Shiro and Allura in front of Lance. _Again_. 

_Nice going Keith, just keep shoving their relationship in his face._

Keith felt the now familiar knot form in his stomach when he thought about Lance's crush on his brother. He tried to breathe through it, careful not to let his feelings show on his face, his chest heaving as if crushed under a lead weight. It made no sense that he should be so upset; it certainly wasn’t about Shiro. It hadn’t mattered to Keith that Shiro was dating Allura, or that _she_ was dating _Shiro_. But for some reason the idea of Lance dating his brother was unbearable. Perhaps he was concerned that Lance’s crush would jeopardize Shiro’s happiness with Allura? It was the only logical explanation. 

Lance flopped down on the beanbag and yanked his sweater off over his head. The fibers of the cloth pulling his button down shirt with it, exposing a smooth back. Keith felt his cheeks warm as Lance laid back on the blue plastic. Wisps of umber hair stood on end from the static of the wool and his gray shirt was still in disarray, a sharp rise of hip and a plane of cinnamon stomach clearly in view on the reclining boy. Keith froze. He was absolutely not staring at the elastic band of pink and blue striped underwear that poked out of Lance's jeans. And he was most definitely not looking at the dark, flat stomach that lay exposed. Of course not. That was not what _friends_ do. 

He quickly shifted his eyes to the floor before Lance could notice, confused at his strange reaction.

“What do you wanna do ‘til then?” Lance swiveled his head to look at Keith. “I don’t got a GF3 anymore since Nicky spilled milk on it. So no more gaming.” 

Keith shrugged. “Anything is fine. I don't have a lot of time, so...” he trailed off, casting his eyes away from Lance’s piercing gaze.

Lance nodded and sat back, peering up at the peel-and-stick stars freckling his ceiling. After a moment he sat up with a wide grin on his face, “I got an idea! Wait here, I'll be right back!”

With that Lance ran straight out his bedroom door, thundering down the hall. Keith stared back at the indented beanbag and the empty space Lance used to occupy before gazing around the room blankly. He waited a minute and stood, glancing down the hallway. He pursed his lips; he could hear Maria in the kitchen cooking and Lance's siblings playing outside. But there was no sign of Lance. 

Sighing, Keith wandered around the room aimlessly. There was a new NASA poster that hadn't been there before. He walked over to it to get a better look. It had a picture of the Mars rover and a caption that read, 

_NASA.  
It's not rocket science. _

_Oh wait, it is._

Keith chuckled. 

He moved from one poster to the next, examining each one closely. Only two were new, the rest he knew by heart, but he perused them all the same. Keith finally paused in front of Lance's desk and smiled at a picture of Lance with his older brother and sister. Trapped inside the cheap, turquoise plastic frame, a smaller Lance held up a giant worm and grinned from ear to ear. 

That was the moment Keith saw it--a box of familiar white envelopes and a sheet of red heart stickers. Most of the stickers were missing, red outlines marking their absence, and the remaining envelopes leaned sharply to one side in the nearly empty box. 

Keith lifted an envelope from the box and held it close to his face, his brain not believing what his eyes were seeing. He flipped it over and over in his hands. It couldn't be. It definitely wasn't. There was no possible way these were the same set that appeared in his locker month after month. It was just... a coincidence. It had to be a coincidence, right? Obviously Lance owned a matching set to the ones haunting him at school. Or perhaps they weren’t even a match, just a similar look. 

_Eerily_ similar. 

Or maybe it belonged to one of his little siblings! Maybe it wasn’t Lance's at all. All those possibilities seemed infinitely more palatable than the alternative.

A sharp inhale was all that warned Keith of Lance's presence in the room. Before he could so much as pivot toward the door to look, the envelope was ripped from his grasp. Lance snatched the box of envelopes and stickers off the desk, shoving them into the drawer and snapping it closed.

Lance rounded on him with fire in his eyes. Keith instinctively took a step back. It all happened so fast, but Keith was fairly sure he hadn’t done anything to warrant this kind of overreaction. He stood stock still as Lance stepped closer. 

“What are you doing going through my stuff?!” Lance towered over him, using his body to block Keith’s view. 

Keith's mouth opened and closed but no sound came out, his brain working overtime trying to keep up.

Their eyes were locked, but they both kept still and silent, Lance glaring daggers and Keith standing wide-eyed and slack-jawed. 

“Well?!” Lance took a step forward until the pair was practically nose-to-nose, his hands resting on slim hips, sculpted eyebrows pulling down to his nose. It was close enough that Keith could see the crimson on Lance’s face, even through the tan of his skin.

Keith finally snapped back to reality, his brain finally processing the situation, and raised his hands defensively, “I was just looking at your posters and I saw those envelopes and they looked like…” he trailed off not knowing how to proceed with that sentence, or if he even wanted to. 

Lance snarled, “They don't look like _anything_.” Lance shifted, his shoulders curling in and arms crossing. He stepped his legs closer together, shortening his stance, his guard shifting from the desk to himself.

Keith’s brow furrowed in confusion as his brain worked overtime, bombarding him with images, thoughts, and feelings.

All the looks Lance had shot him across the blue mesh table at Sonic flashed through his head, and all the glances before that--playful gazes in the hallways, at lunch, or playing video games. All the times Lance had come so close, casually brushing against him for no reason, walking too close, leaning in to whisper during class flooded his mind. All the times Keith caught Lance grinning at him when he thought he wasn’t looking, all the times that Keith brushed off as Lance being Lance bubbled up in his memory. And it _finally_ clicked. Keith realized in that moment that Shiro was not Lance's crush. 

It was Keith. 

 

_He was Lance’s crush._

 

Keith took control of his tongue, but not his emotions, “Yes, they do.” Keith stomped his foot and clenched his fists, “They look like the love letters I've been getting at school!” The words came out in heat and anger, an accusation.

“Do not,” Lance huffed in a childish tone, glaring purposefully at the floor between them. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Keith ignored him, “All of those letters? _All_ of them? They were all _you_?” He threw his arms out wide. His voice rose in pitch and volume, but Keith didn't care. 

“What does it matter?” Lance matched Keith’s volume, his eyes flashing to the door as he rubbed his palms vigorously on his face before clawing his fingers across his scalp. Lance visibly deflated, but held his defensive posture as if his life depended on it, parting his lips to speak, “They all ended up in the garbage anyways.” All the fight left his voice and his eyes dulled as they sunk down to stare blankly at the space between them.

A cold sweat broke out on his skin as he overheated in his long sleeved shirt, panic settling deep in his stomach. “It matters,” Keith replied, and it was all he could say. He drew himself to his full height, which still only reached Lance’s neck, and clenched his fists at his sides, palms slick. 

“Why?” Lance slowly unfolded his body, his eyes gazing just below Keith’s face through his thick lashes, as if looking at him straight on would physically hurt. And maybe it would. “You clearly weren’t interested.”

“ _Because, Lance_ ,” he spoke as if this was the most obvious thing in the world, “I'm gay. I thought the letters were from a _girl_ , so there was no need to open them.”

Lance’s eyes widened slightly, his shoulders dropping an inch. “Oh.”

“Yes, _oh._ If I'd known it was you I wouldn't have thrown them away. _Especially_ if it was you.” Keith’s voice hitched. He took a small step forward, wanting to close the distance between them, but wary of spooking Lance. Instead he hovered awkwardly, not sure where to put his hands.

“Why?” It came out bitter and confused. 

He used all his willpower to not roll his eyes. Spurned into action by pure annoyance, he crossed his arms and glared at the other boy, “Because you're my friend, I wouldn't want to hurt you like that.” Keith thought it was obvious. Lance needed the simplest things explained to him sometimes. 

Lance retreated physically at the words, shrinking in on himself and nodding. For the first time, Keith felt tall around the other boy. His arms loosened and his jaw dropped at Lance’s reaction. What did he say to cause such a reaction from Lance? Was he wrong-- were they not friends?

“Yeah, friends. Of course, Keith.” He laughed but it was ugly to Keith’s ears, “Yeah. Okay. Well, that's great. Yep. Just great. Well, now that that's over we can just play cards. Yeah, I brought cards.” His head still down, Lance started walking to the doorway, reaching down to collect a pile of black and white cards littering the floor that Keith only just noticed in all the confusion.

Keith rolled his eyes and grabbed Lance's wrist, stopping him in place. Lance refused to look at him but he wasn't fighting to get out of Keith's grip. 

“That's not fair.” Keith waited a beat for any response or motion. “ _Lance, look at me._ ” He tugged gently on the other boy's wrist, squeezing gently. 

Keith could feel Lance stiffen for a moment, but the tension in his wrist slowly melted away and he turned to face Keith. Lance didn't move closer and the distance was making Keith angry, as if it was to blame for this whole misunderstanding. So Keith took it upon himself to close the gap.

Keith was worse than useless with this kind of emotional thing and he knew it. Hell, anyone who’d met him knew it. But determination fueled him on. This whole mess was mostly his fault and he had to fix it. 

Schooling his voice into a tone he thought would sound soft and reassuring, Keith took a breath and began, “I'm sorry.” Keith tilted his head to the side so that Lance was forced to look at him, “I'm sorry I threw away your letters. If I'd known, I would’ve read every one of them. So... I'm sorry.” Lance’s head drooped further and Keith frowned. He reached up, using the knuckle of his pointer finger to lift Lance's chin, then swiftly pulled his hand away. Keith hated how small Lance looked. He’d give anything to have that overconfident smirk back. Anything was better than this.

Lance stubbornly glued his eyes to the floor, even as his face lifted. 

“Look at me, Lance.” Keith tried to keep his voice gentle, but it came out too stern, even to his own unskilled ear. 

Despite his emotional blundering, Lance slowly lifted his eyes to meet Keith's. His blue eyes were bright with unshed tears, fat drops clinging to the edge of dense lashes and refusing to fall as his mouth held tight in a heavy line. _Oh, shit… I made him cry. What is_ wrong _with me?_

What did his mom do when he cried? What would Shiro do? Hesitantly reaching forward, cheeks tensing around squinted eyes, Keith ran his thumb over Lance's cheek, “Hey, don’t cry. Everything is okay.” Keith forced a smile. “I know I hurt your feelings, but,” he took a silent breath and tried his best to put a reassuring look on his face, “if you can give me another chance, why don't you tell me what you wrote in those letters?”

Lance squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, knocking Keith’s hand away in the process. A few tears fell loose from his umber lashes and rolled down over flushed cheeks before his face disappeared entirely, head dropping to his chest. 

A sudden buzz made both boys jump. Keith pulled out his phone to silence it, only to discover a message from Shiro illuminating his lock screen. He was already waiting outside. 

“Damn it,” he hissed, biting his lip at his screen.

“You have to go. Don't worry about me.” Lance shot him grin, but the corners trembled a little and it didn’t reach his eyes. 

Keith shook his head, “Shiro can wait a few seconds.” He pushed the auto-reply on his phone to save him some time and shoved it back into his pocket. “Tell me what the letters said.” 

“I… I can't.” Lance shook his head furiously, wiping the right sleeve of his gray shirt over both cheeks and swinging his arm down to rest at his side. “That's why they were letters.” 

Keith didn't have time to argue so he chose the best alternative he could, “Then, will you write me one more?” Lance’s mouth parted in surprise, stormy eyes squinting, peering warily into his own violet. Keith bit his lip and added, “Please?” 

Lance closed his eyes and nodded, a tear streaking down to his chin. Keith’s hand reacted without his permission and caught the hot droplet with the base of his thumb, the tip wiping his cheek. Lance’s skin was soft and Keith wanted to feel more, he rubbed his thumb over the other boy’s high cheekbones. He traced the line to warm ears, tinged pink at the tips. Keith felt Lance relax under his hand, not tense as he had expected.

Keith half-smiled, his eyes softening at the edges as he sighed. “Thank you, Lance.” His thumb continued to stroke Lance’s silky cheek.

The corners of Lance’s mouth lifted into a small smile and he inhaled a shuddering breath, nodding, “Okay,” Blue eyes peeked out from under damp, dark eyelashes, “Yeah, okay. I can do that.” Keith sighed, his whole body relaxing.

And then stood there for a moment, pondering his exit. Should he just leave? Should he say something? 

“I really need to go,” Keith began. “Shiro won’t be happy I’m taking so long.” With impeccable timing, Keith’s phone buzzed with another incoming message. 

Lance nodded his head, “Yeah. You should go.” 

The motion reminded Keith that his hand was still on Lance's cheek and he wasn’t sure how to stop touching the other boy. Why did no one teach these kinds of things? There should be classes on how to excuse yourself once you’ve passed into the awkward stage of a conversation. Or how to stop touching a cute boy once you’ve started. School really didn’t teach anything useful. Finally, he brought his hand down halfway to pat Lance’s shoulder. 

_God, I’m hopeless._

“Okay.” Keith slipped his hand off Lance’s shoulder a little too slowly. “See you then.” Loud vibrations rattled in his pocket. Keith shot Lance an apologetic look, _Shut_ up _Shitro._

“See you tomorrow.” Lance took a few steps back and chewed on his lip. 

Keith brought his hand down to his side and picked up his backpack. He grabbed onto the straps with both hands to give himself something to do. 

“I'll just... go, then.” He pointed with his chin to the exit and made his way around Lance, inching past him in the small space. 

Lance stepped aside, his legs hitting the bed as he made room for Keith to get to the door. 

“Tell Shiro I said hi.” Lance half raised his hand in a wave but clenched it instead and lowered it back down to his side in a fist. 

“I will.” With that, Keith finally made his exit, sprinting through the house and shouting out a quick goodbye to Maria before running out the door. 

_How am I supposed to make it to tomorrow?_

\---------

Keith rubbed his eyes, bits of sleep flaking from his short lashes as he made his way across campus. He'd been up all night trying to decide how he felt about Lance. Sure, Lance was kind of a tool, and he had absolutely no sense of humility, but he was also funny and optimistic and extremely loyal to his friends. On top of that he'd befriended Keith, of all people, when everyone else had been scared of him. 

He stopped in front of his locker, the chipped blue paint teasing him with what it might hold inside. Keith brought up a gloved hand to spin the combination lock but paused, fingertips poised. It wasn’t only his personality that made Lance attractive, and that’s what really scared him. Everytime he closed his eyes his brain graced him with images of stormy blue and long legs wrapped in skinny jeans. Keith was helpless. He vaguely wondered how long he'd been ignoring his growing feelings for the other boy, how long he'd actually crushed on Lance, and if any of the others knew. 

Mustering up enough courage at last, Keith spun the lock and carefully peeked inside. American history, trigonometry, and an old pair of gym shorts he’d forgotten. The pit of his stomach dropping clear through the floor, he slowly closed his locker.

Keith turned to walk to first period and shook his head to rid it of his obvious disappointment. Of course it was empty. Lance never made it to school early. He would have to check after lunch.

Lance wasn’t at lunch and Hunk left early to meet Pidge for a group project. Everyone probably already knew what happened; doubtless Lance had snapchatted the whole thing to Hunk last night. Maybe they were all avoiding him on purpose? His shoulders slumped as he trudged to his locker. It wasn’t a surprise when he was greeted with only his textbooks and that damn pair of shorts. What was taking Lance so long? Keith sighed, slamming the blue metal door shut. 

A stack of drawing paper flopped onto his desk and his teacher rambled on at the front of the room about their drawing assignment. Keith took a sheet and walked over to the closest desk to pass it on. Stabbing at his kneaded eraser with a 2B pencil, he stared at the wall clock--ticking away seconds as if they were minutes--and groaned when the tip snapped off against the malleable rubber. Fruit, illuminated by harsh lamps, sat waiting to be drawn in the center of a circle of oversized desks. Keith ignored it, his mind attempting to calculate what percentage of class was left until he could get out of here. Then his brain switched over to a new task, running through every irate gesture, every awkward pause, every muttered phrase, and every gentle touch from yesterday. His pencil scratched into the paper, heavy and dark.

The sudden pressure of a hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his trance and Keith looked up into the concerned hazel eyes of his Art teacher. 

“Keith, the bell rang.” Her eyes flitted down to his paper and he followed her gaze, “are you okay?” Angry lines ripped down the page in an abstract scribble of his locker. 

Keith groaned, “Yeah, I’m fine, Miss Tristan.” Crumpling the mess of a picture in his fist he shoved it haphazardly in his bag, “Sorry about the assignment, I’ll fix it later. Gotta get to class.” Keith ran out the door and sprinted to the main building, sliding into Science right before the tardy bell.

The last two hours of school were hands-down the worst he'd experienced in his entire life. Each minute lasted half an hour, each hour a full day. Keith bounced his leg under his desk and clenched his jaw until it hurt. This teacher needed to _shut up_. Now.

The red second hand ticked sluggishly toward twelve and Keith packed his bag, eyes hardly straying from the stark black-and-white face of the clock for a moment before gazing back up again. When the bell finally rang, he was already four steps out the door and rushing to his locker. Lance had free period during 5th hour, which was probably when he’d put the letters in Keith’s locker. Now, it made so much more sense; he mostly found them at the end of the day. Why did he think today would be any different? This time, however, he was sure the letter would be there. 

_It had to be._

Keith sprinted so fast through the corridor that he crashed into his locker to stop himself. He spun through his combination three times with no success, frustration rising with each missed number. He slapped the locker with the base of his palm and took a deep breath. With shaking fingers, he dialed out his combination slowly. The lock clicked. He swung the door open with such force that it ricocheted off the other locker and slammed back shut. He opened it again with a growl, this time chasing the door with his fist, punching it to hold it open.

Empty.

_Shit_

Keith leaned his full weight on the lockers and squeezed his eyes shut. The heel of his hands came up to press into his eyes, stars flashing behind his lids. 

No letter. 

What did this mean? Maybe it was too late? Maybe Lance had given up on him. But he had promised. _He_ promised _me._ Keith growled as he raked his fingers through his hair, chipped polish catching on tangles and ripping at his scalp. 

Keith closed his locker and trudged out of the double doors. 

Keith slowly trudged his way across the grounds, there was no point in rushing. A girl dashing toward the buses clipped him on the shoulder as she ran past, not even stopping to say sorry. He didn’t care, everything was numb. It was Friday, but it felt like doomsday. He wasn't looking forward to a weekend of obsessing over each thing he might have said wrong, remembering every time he threw one of Lance's letters away, or thinking about all the ways he’d made Lance feel like he was nothing to him. Keith knew in the days to follow that he would analyze every move he'd ever made in front of Lance, and the damning consequences of all of them. 

He jumped when a hand landed softly on his shoulder. Spinning around, Keith came face-to-neck with bronze skin and a familiar white NASA shirt. His eyes slowly followed the curve of bronze up to a pointed jaw before finally resting on stormy blue eyes that wouldn’t hold still.

“Hey, man.” Lance’s voice was unusually quiet and he shuffled his weight between his feet uncomfortably. 

“Lance!” Keith spoke a little too loudly, his voice cracking at the top. He was breaking down inside and just barely scratched hold of a tattered shred of his sanity long enough to speak. Lance was acting so _off_ and it threw Keith completely off kilter. 

Cobalt irises flitted in every imaginable direction, dark circles just visible at this distance through carefully applied concealer. Try as he might Keith couldn’t catch Lance’s eye, his frustration at the situation growing by the second. Lance made him wait all day for this moment and now he wouldn’t even look at him. A low growl escape his throat.

Nervous eyes flicked to meet Keith’s at the sound before fixing on some point behind him. Lance cleared his throat, wiping his palms on his jeans. Jittery fingers flexing and unflexing, clutching at purposefully ripped jeans. Keith followed the movement of those fingers as they twitched slowly, pulling a crumpled letter from his back pocket and holding it out to Keith with a shaky hand.

Keith looked at the letter, eyes wide. His hand came up unconsciously, the pads of his fingers pinching at the white textured envelope lightly. In the process, his fingers brushed gently against the tips of Lance’s. They were soft, like his cheek had been. Lance pulled his hand away from the contact and Keith watched as he buried it in the pocket of his denim jacket, those long slender fingers disappearing from vision.

Cautiously, Keith looked up at Lance, a question in his eyes. He took a breath, “Can I read it now?”

Lance shook his head vigorously, eyes trained on his blue converse as he rubbed the toe into the concrete, “No, uh... Don't read it in front of me. Wait till you get home.”

“Okay.” It took all of Keith's willpower not to rip it open right then and there. His fingers tightened on the paper clutched in his hands as he willed them not to move.

“Well, see you Monday.” Lance tilted his head as if to say goodbye and then turned in the direction of his house, setting off in a speed walk across campus with those stilted legs.

Not once in their fleeting conversation had the turbulent ocean of Lance’s eyes fallen on him and Keith felt dread sink through his skin, “Yeah. See ya.” Keith muttered to Lance's back. 

Keith’s eyes didn’t leave Lance’s form until the other boy was out of sight. He looked down at the crumpled envelope, adorned with a single red heart sticker holding the flap closed. Identical to every letter he’d discarded. It seemed impossible, but… were they really all Lance? All of them for two years? Lance could have started more recently. It was possible…. 

_I'll have you know that I've had a crush for two years, now.…_

Keith felt his stomach turn to lead. No, he wasn’t that lucky. It was only Lance whose heart he’d crushed, whose hopes he’d destroyed again and again. Did Keith even deserve this letter? He’d thrown away all of Lance’s carefully wrapped feelings without a second thought. 

A full day of torturous waiting, and now that the letter was in his hands fear knocked the breath from Keith’s chest and a chill seeped into his skin. What if Lance’d finally had enough? What if it wasn’t a confession this time, but a repudiation? A well-deserved denouncement of Keith’s maltreatment of Lance’s feelings?

His hand trembled. Keith couldn’t read it here, not now. He shoved the letter in his bag and slinked toward the bus. 

The ride home took twice as long as usual, or rather it seemed to. Keith’s voice boomed through his own head as he re-lived each facet of their conversation, ruminating on each expression that passed across the taller boy’s face, each flit of his eyes and pull of his hands, every shift in Lance’s posture. What did it all mean? 

The noise of the other students’ usual chatter--exclamations of frustration over assignments that painted a clear picture of their own stupidity, meaningless drivel about fashion or athletes or memes, and plans to meet up and spend more time talking about the same stupidity and drivel--faded into static in the background. His backpack felt heavy in his lap, the only thing holding him in his body as the bus jolted over every bump and through every turn. When he finally stepped off the bus, he swore the letter added a good ten pounds of weight. Each step was arduous, each stride a struggle, and the path home felt like a march to the scaffold. Soon Keith would face his capital punishment, the letter his callous executioner. 

It felt like eons had passed by the time he’d made it home. Keith pulled out his key to let himself in. His adopted family wouldn’t be home for a few more hours, but Keith was used to being on his own. And today he craved the solitude of a vacant house. 

Trudging upstairs to his room, Keith dropped his bag inside his bedroom door and crouched, rifling through the mess of crushed papers and heavy books, until he found the letter. He pinched it between his lips while he sloughed off his red plaid flannel overshirt and padded across his room. He knew the flannel clashed with his red ‘Rise Against’ shirt, but anything heavier was too hot for the desert winter. 

_Not everyone can be a fashionista like Lance._

Plucking the letter from his mouth, he placed it on his desk. It leaned against the silver lamp, the only furnishing on the desk apart from his old, beat up laptop. He sat down and folded his arms over his closed MacBook and rested his cheek on the cool metal. The peeling Panic! At the Disco sticker adorning the case poked harshly into his skin. He lifted his elbow slightly and brushed it across the silver casing, pressing the corner of the sticker down with his arm. 

The chill seeped into his skin, and he let it. Staring distrustfully at the inoffensive surface of the white envelope, Keith was struck by its condescending, disdainful nature, which seemed to mock him from every angle. It whispered that it was full of secrets, just like its rashly discarded brothers. But even if he were to open it, it would never tell him what the others said. He was sure, now, that the contents locked inside were a scathing indictment of his cruelty and nescience. The small crumpled letter radiated malice. What else could Lance have meant by making him read the letter in private?

Keith groaned, tearing his eyes away from the letter and burying his face into his arms, breathing in the sharp metallic scent of the laptop under his nose. 

“What am I doing?” Keith chastised himself. “Just open the damn letter.” 

Keith squeezed his eyes shut, lifting his head off his arms. He opened his eyes slowly, searching for the letter as if worried it vanished into the fairy realm when he wasn’t looking. It was still there, sticker dutifully holding the letter shut.

He extended his arm to it slowly, so slowly in fact that Keith wasn’t even aware he’d done it until his finger brushed the textured paper. His fingertips traced the creases in the paper planted there by its rough handler. His skin recorded the feel of the bumps and ridges on the surface, contrasting the glossy finish of the red heart. 

Keith's finger pressed too hard; the letter slid off its precarious perch, falling on its back. His finger hovered in the air the envelope used to occupy, poised and unmoving.

Sitting up, he used black nails to lift it from the base of his lamp, only daring to hold it with his thumb and forefinger. Anything more than the bare minimum contact might poison him, the acidic intentions within corroding the pores of the cardstock. With his opposite hand he again traced the heart that held it closed. Sighing, Keith dropped the letter back down to the desk. It fluttered softly, almost innocently, landing half on his laptop and half on the table top. 

It was no use. Maybe it was better to not know. There was the smallest of chances that the letter contained Lance’s original feelings, but what would he do if those feelings had changed? Not that Keith deserved anything more than Lance’s scorn. Until it was read, however, it was Schrödinger’s Letter, and contained within was both hope and despair. But if it was never observed, then there was no confession, and _no rejection_. If he never looked inside, he and Lance could simply continue their casual friendship, unhindered by complicated feelings. Keith could enjoy bickering with the other boy and laughing at his dumb jokes. There was no need to change what they had. 

“Plus,” he reasoned with himself, “I have all weekend to read it if I want to.” 

Relieved by his decision to avoid making a decision, Keith rolled back in his chair and stood. Shiro would be home first. Maybe he could find a way to ask him for guidance without actually asking him. Something less obvious than the _a friend of mine has a problem_ route. 

Keith trudged downstairs and into the kitchen to find himself a snack. If he was sneaky enough, Shiro might actually have some good advice and Keith could save himself any embarrassment. He nodded to himself as he pulled out the peanut butter and jelly.

_I can do this._

\---------

Shiro was late. 

He was supposed to be home by 6PM. But it was coming on 7PM and there was still no sign of his brother. Their parents would be getting home from work soon and the window for discreet relationship consultation was fast closing. He checked his phone a sixteenth time. The message he’d sent to Shiro was still marked unread. Keith growled, gritting his teeth. 

_Shiro_ always _answers his phone. What’s going on?_

He opened his recent calls and clicked on _Also Dad_. The phone rang. He really needed to change Shiro's name; the joke wasn't as funny as he'd thought it would be. A click and shuffling at the door made him lift his head. A key rattled in the lock; Keith rolled his eyes as he touched the red end-call button in the middle of his screen. Shiro stumbled into the foyer, bunches of bags in his arms as he fiddled to get the key out of the lock.

“Where have you been?” Keith asked a bit too harshly, accusation clear in his tone. He grabbed for one of the bags in Shiro’s arms to help him out, “And what’s all this?” His voice softened a level as confusion entered.

Shiro gave him a shy smile, “Sorry. My phone died and I let Allura use my spare charger.” He handed Keith another bag from his arms and was finally able to retrieve his key from the lock. 

Keith shot his brother a look that was both accepting and all suffering. Shiro was such a sap for Allura.

“Yeah yeah, don’t give me that. I can’t _not_ text Allura during classes and her social life is more important than mine.” Shiro shrugged as he kicked the door closed.

“Is it more important than me?” Keith meant it as a joke; he just wished it hadn’t sounded so pathetic. But he was high-strung, his nerves frazzled to the core. And now? He was feeling a bit abandoned by his brother. Today _sucked._

Shiro immediately launched into big brother mode, “More important…? Keith no! Of course not! But you don’t usually text me so I didn’t think…” Shiro sighed, “Come on, let’s put these away and talk.” Shiro nudged him gently with his elbow, causing Keith to take a step back. A slow smile peaked the corners of his mouth.

Keith looked down into the paper bag finding it full of produce, “Why are you buying groceries again?” He followed Shiro into the kitchen.

“Dad has to work late tonight. He texted me at lunch to pick them up. Mom is going on a work trip tomorrow so she doesn’t have time.” Shiro opened the fridge, going straight for the vegetable drawer. He rustled around, pulling any wilted vegetables out and putting them in a bag for compost.

Keith’s head snapped up from the bag he’d been inspecting and he bristled, “Mom’s going on a trip? And no one thought to tell _me_?”

Shiro glanced over his shoulder shooting him a pointed look as if to say _don’t jump to conclusions_ , before turning back to the fridge, “She just found out at lunch and trust me, she’s not happy about it. Apparently she called Dad in a panic which was when he texted me. So, it’s just you and me tonight and I thought Netflix and junk food?” He methodically placed vegetables in the now empty veggie drawer.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather hang out with Allura?” Keith laughed sardonically, a part of him expecting Shiro to realize his mistake and change his mind. Keith couldn’t control this self-deprecating hole he was digging himself into.

Shiro scoffed, “And miss Netflix and chill with my bro? Never!” Shiro moved to the counter grabbing a new bag to put away.

“Gross. I really don’t think you know what that means,” Keith deadpanned, he stretched up on his tippy toes, fingers stretching to their limit for the chip bowl. He caught the lip and flicked, causing it to tumble down from the shelf into his waiting arms.

Shiro looked puzzled, “What _what_ means?”

“Nevermind.” Keith shook his head, “What are we having for dinner?” He popped open the tortilla chips and poured them into the oversized white plastic bowl.

Keith and Shiro made quick work of the groceries and Shiro threw a frozen pizza in the oven while Keith made cheesy salsa dip. Keith took the bowl of chips and cheesy-salsa into the living room and turned on the GameFlux 4, opening up Netflix.

He called out to Shiro in the kitchen, “What did you want to watch?”

Shiro poked his head around the corner, “Isn’t there a new giant robot show that they rebooted? Allura said it was pretty good.”

Keith scrolled down the list looking for something that matched the bizarre description, “Is it Nultron?” He called out to Shiro as he hovered over a colorful thumbnail of “Nultron: Ancient Protector”.

“Sounds about right,” Shiro replied, carrying the fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza and paper plates, placing them next to the chips and dip, the pizza balanced on an eggplant-themed hot pad. Keith abandoned the controller in favor of serving himself some pizza. He licked his fingers to protect them from the heat, then deftly slid a slice onto his plate.

He slid back into the couch, feet tucked under him as nibbled at the scalding pizza, still too hot to actually touch. Shiro pushed the “X” on the discarded GameFlux controller and the room flashed different colors in the darkened room as the opening began.

This was comfortable. 

Keith leaned into Shiro’s strong side as they riffed and laughed with the show. It was animated, but Keith still enjoyed it. It was definitely right up Allura’s ally and that was probably why Shiro wanted to watch it, but right now it was just him and his brother and a night to themselves. The letter lay forgotten upstairs as Keith let the soft warmth radiating from Shiro calm him down. It wasn’t long before Keith’s eyes began drooping, his head falling to the side, resting heavily on Shiro’s shoulder. Soft snores mingled into the sounds of battle blasters and the musical theme of an epic robotic transformation as the pair drifted into slumber.

\---------

Keith awoke with a crick in his neck. He looked up to see the TV dully flashing ads for various Netflix shows; they must have fallen asleep on the couch. He shifted and felt something soft slide off his legs, the chill air nipping his bare feet. Keith fingered the fuzzy fabric of the threadbare blanket and stuffed his feet back inside. Their dad must’ve come home sometime during the night and tucked them in. Keith smiled gently to himself before a yawn interrupted his expression and he squeezed his eyes shut, pressing small tears from the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away before stretching his arms up and behind him, popping his back. Keith grabbed his head in both hands and gave a quick tug, a loud crack echoed in his skull and saliva filled up the back of his throat. 

“Ahhh,” Keith moaned basking in the feeling of his muscles relaxing, “that felt good.” He looked over to Shiro who was lying at an awkward angle that allowed Keith half of the couch. He was scrunched up with his legs falling off the side and his head pillowed on the armrest. 

Keith kicked him with an icy foot. “Get up, Stupid.” Keith added his other foot, pushing him with his whole body. Shiro groaned and lifted a foot to shove back at Keith. Shiro’s foot shoved itself straight into Keith’s face. 

“Ugh, sick.” Keith pushed the offensive foot away and Shiro placed it back down on the couch with his knee bent. Shiro folded his arms behind his head and smirked. He made a comfortable and confident picture with one leg propped up next to his butt and the other dangling off the couch.

Keith scrunched up his nose, “Do you even wash your feet? If Allura knew about your dirty ass she’d never have dated you.” Keith made a show of plugging his nose and waving his hand to show _just_ how stinky Shiro’s feet were.

Shiro pushed Keith with both his feet, shoving him off the couch. Keith fell unceremoniously on his butt. “She loves my feet, thank you very much.” Shiro still sat with all the confidence of a big brother, a king upon his couch kingdom.

“I don’t want to know your kinks, just keep your shitty feet away from my face,” Keith huffed. 

“Watch your mouth, emo boy,” Shiro scolded.

Keith opened his mouth to give his dumb brother a piece of his mind, but his stomach determined that this was an opportune moment to growl deafeningly into the morning air, cutting off any conversation. 

Keith conveniently remembered the reason he was trying to wake Shiro, “I’m hungry,” he grumbled. Shiro had a soft spot for taking care of people and there was no one he loved taking care of more than Keith, not even Allura. And Keith knew it. 

“Ok, _little punk_ , why don’t you heat up some pizza?” Shiro pointed with his chin to the pizza still sitting on the coffee table, trying to ignore Keith’s pout.

Keith made a face sticking out his tongue in disgust, “Gross, I don’t want day-old pizza.”

“Day-old pizza is a culinary marvel, and you’re crazy for not liking it,” Shiro reprimanded cooly.

“I want _real_ food. Can’t we go to IHOP or something?” Keith protested.

Shiro lifted a brow with a textbook smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth, “Since when is IHOP real food?”

“I said ‘or something’.” 

“Alright, I'll see if Dad wants to go. You get dressed.” Shiro paused, leaning himself back against a couch cushion and flicking his eyes over Keith from head to toe before continuing, “Also, you might want look in a mirror before we go. One man’s opinion.” Shiro chuckled and kip-upped off the couch gracefully. 

Keith ignored his brother’s comment, smiling in triumph as he went up to his room. He dug through his hamper, pulling out a red shirt and a pair of ripped black jeans. Smelling the jeans for freshness, he nodded approvingly once they passed muster and stepped into them, hopping so he could pull his feet off the worn ends of the pant legs and slide the pair fully up over his slim hips. He tossed an oversized black hoodie over his head and turned to the full-length mirror on the back of his door to take in his ensemble. He supposed he made a very… dark impression, covered from head-to-toe in all black, but he didn’t much mind. Keith liked wearing black. It was easy to match. 

Keith did frown, though, as he ran a hand through tangled charcoal locks. _So that’s what he meant…_ It was no joke, his hair was a mess. The long strands jetted up at odd angles from his awkward sleeping position, and it refused to lay back down. Running the flat of his hand down over his hair, Keith palmed the wild cowlicks, trying to calm them to no avail. 

He gave up.

Resigned, Keith sighed as he reached for the beanie hanging on his bedpost. He shoved the woolen charcoal cap over the offending hair and peered closely at his reflection. Passable. 

Something white caught his eye in the mirror. There, sitting in a deceptively innocent perch, half hanging off his laptop, was the letter. He'd almost forgotten about it, and now he wished he could forget about it all over again. 

Expression sinking, Keith turned around to look at the real thing. He steeled his resolve, crossing the distance and plucking the envelope from its resting spot and slipping it into his back pocket. Maybe if the letter was with him, he’d find a good time to talk to Shiro. If he didn’t chicken out like _last_ time.

Keith ran back downstairs. Shiro was waiting for him at the door. 

“Dad coming?” Keith questioned, placing one hand halfway down the railing and the other against the bare wall on the opposite side and swinging himself forward over the remaining stairs to land on the carpet a few feet from Shiro. 

“Still asleep,” Shiro replied, unfazed. He’d seen his little brother stick that maneuver enough times not to worry. “We’ll bring him home some pancakes.” Shiro swung open the door and shrugged his head toward it to beckon Keith through. 

Shiro let him pick the Pandora station and Keith spaced out to early 2000’s emo punk, thinking about the paper secrets in his pocket. Their father was at home. It was just him and Shiro. They were alone. This was the perfect moment. He should just say something. He should say something _before_ they got to the restaurant. It wasn’t that long of a drive. _Come on, Keith, get your shit together!_

Shiro tapped him on the shoulder, pulling him out of his funk. “We’re here,” he said helpfully, as if Keith couldn’t see the oversized blue IHOP sign through his window. Keith pulled the AUX cable out of his phone with a pop and a scratch, music abruptly severed mid-chorus. 

He slid out of the car and popped a hip to knock the door into its housing, the old metal already too dented to notice any new abuse Keith might have inflicted. Shiro clicked his tongue but held it, leading the way inside the restaurant in silence. 

A line had already formed around the hostess booth, loud families full of children squished into the few seats that lined the waiting area. A bubbly hostess let them know the wait time was fifteen minutes. Shiro nodded and gave Keith’s name for their place in line. 

Keith pulled out his phone and saw a missed call from _Dad Classic_ and five new messages in the group chat. He swiped the notifications away. Lance was in the group chat and he couldn’t handle that right now. Instead Keith looked up at Shiro who was currently trying to squish his large muscular frame into the wall as a family passed to exit the restaurant. Keith watched as Shiro breathed back in once they were through the door, and he half-chuckled to himself as they waited in the corner near the door.

“You didn’t tell Dad we were leaving?” Keith asked, displaying the missed call to his brother, though holding the phone too close to Shiro’s face to actually see anything. 

Shiro shoved the phone away, “He was asleep! Don’t worry I’ll text him and let him know we’re here.” His fingers moved swiftly over his own phone, although Keith wasn’t sure if he was really texting Dad, or Allura. 

“Keith, party of two!” a peppy voice called out over the din of the crowd. Keith’s head shot up at his own name and quickly elbowed Shiro whose face was buried in his phone. _Allura, then._

“Our turn.” He explained, nodding to the hostess that was looking at them expectantly, menus tucked neatly into the crook of her arm. 

She led them through the maze of tables and booths to the back room. Keith eyed a family with a baby in a highchair that was gleefully throwing bits of pancake on the ground while the parents pointedly ignored the mess. Thankfully, the hostess passed the chaotic table, setting both menus down on a booth in the corner. 

 

“Our special is Cupcake Pancakes and your server today is Rolo. Have a good meal.” She swept out of the room, sidestepping the baby-made pancake mess on the floor and left before they could say anything in reply. 

Keith picked up one of the menus, grimacing at the abomination that was the Cupcake Pancake. Even worse, there was a part of him that wanted to try the horrific concoction. His eye caught Shiro leaning his head on his fist looking at him. Keith looked back, puzzled, but before he could ask what was wrong a waiter came by with waters for each of them. He was all smiles and had a voice like dark chocolate salted caramels. 

“My name’s Rolo and I’ll be your waiter today. Are we all ready to order or do we need more time?” He smiled warmly at them. Rolo was _built_ , lean muscle visible under his white button down shirt, but smaller in build than Shiro and all leg. Keith swallowed thickly, trying not to check out the waiter and failing several times in a matter of seconds.

 _I’m so fucking gay_ , he moaned internally. 

Thankfully, Shiro took control of the situation. He looked up at the bubbly waiter and smiled, “Still thinking.”

The waiter nodded knowingly, “Just let me know if you have any questions, I'll be back to check on you.” His low voice rumbled smoothly over the screaming children and clinking ceramic. Rolo winked at Keith before turning to take care of an adjacent table. 

Keith’s brain shut down _Did the hot waiter just wink at me?_ He shook his head, there was no way.

Shiro went back to leaning on his fist, he scanned the menu before looking up, “What do you want? I think I'll get the 2x2x2 for Dad.” 

Keith snapped out of his quiet panic, his brain sluggishly trying to discern what Shiro had asked. He shrugged, eyes trained on the menu, ignoring his brother. Shrugging was always a safe answer. 

“Hey, Keith, this was your idea, so what did you want?” Shiro’s tone was light but firm. 

_Oh, right, of course, food._ Keith sighed shrinking himself back into the cushioned bench. “I guess I'll just have all the pancakes.”

“All of them? As in, every pancake they have? Not sure if I can afford that.” He clicked his tongue as if considering actually buying the restaurant out of its pancake supply. 

Keith waved his hand over the menu dismissively, “Just whichever is the largest stack, Stupid-ro.”

Shiro made a noncommittal sound and waved down their waiter. 

Rolo pulled a an empty chair from a nearby table and swung a long leg over the seet, sitting on it backwards, “What can I get’cha guys?”

Shiro pointed the large picture of pancakes, “A double stack of the buttermilk pancakes,” His finger slid over toward the pictures of the omelette, “A bacon temptation omelette for me, and can we get the 2x2x2 to-go?”

Rolo’s smile was easy and bright, “Sure can, did you want bacon or sausage with that to-go order?”

“Bacon.” Shiro and Keith said in unison.

Rolo’s eyes flashed over to Keith’s, “Good choice.” He looked back at Shiro once Keith was rosey to the tips of his ears, “Will that be everything?”

Shiro nodded. 

“I’ll have that right out for you, guys.” Rolo slipped out of his chair and spun it back to its original table before walking off to give their order to the kitchen.

Once the waiter was safely out of earshot, Shiro pinned him with a serious look. Keith cringed, he knew what his brother was about to ask and he shifted closer to the edge of the booth.

_Maybe I can pretend I need to go to the bathroom._

“Are you going to tell me what's wrong?” Why did his brother have to be such a _dad_. Keith looked down at his fingers, he wasn’t ready to talk about this, especially in the middle of a busy IHOP. This conversation was supposed to happen last night; now, he just wanted to forget the whole thing. 

“Nothing's wrong.” He fiddled with his straw, pushing the wrapper into a wad at the bottom, scrunching it into a “caterpillar”. Shiro’d showed him the trick when he was six and Keith still liked to make them, even if it was childish.

“Oh sure, nothing is wrong,” Shiro agreed. “That's why you subjected me to depressing emo music the whole way here and now you're about to eat your weight in pancakes.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my taste in music.” Keith let the “caterpillar” go from his straw and pushed it around the table top with his finger. “Also, pancakes are delicious.” Keith glared at his brother, abandoning his newly made toy to cross his arms in front of his chest. 

Shiro let out a long-suffering sigh. “I know when something’s bothering you, Keith. I'm your big brother, it's my job to notice. So give it up already and tell me what's going on.”

Keith rolled his eyes and sat back in his seat. Sometimes his brother was _too_ observant. Or perhaps Keith was more obvious with his feelings than he thought he was. 

_Damn it._

“I told you, it’s nothing, _Dad_. I don’t wanna talk about it.” Keith pointedly ignored Shiro, instead, opting to fill his straw with a drop of water and let it land on the “caterpillar”. He watched the paper intently as it wiggled, moisture causing the crinkled straw wrapper to expand. It was stupid, and he loved it.

Shiro pursed his lips and nodded, “Okay, little punk, if you say so,” he sing-songed and sat back, lifting the menu to cover the smirk Keith knew was hidden there. 

“I do say so, Stupid-ro!” Keith shot back, leaning forward to knock down the menu, revealing Shiro’s smug smile. 

Shiro’s eyes flicked up and caught sight of the waiter headed to their table with their food. He pointed with his chin to let Keith know the food was incoming. They both stopped talking, an awkward pause in their banter as they politely waited for the waiter to deposit their food in front of them. 

“Double stack of pancakes.” Keith raised his hand as Rolo place his plate in front of him. “And a bacon omelette.” Rolo put the remaining plate in front of Shiro. “Can I get you anything else? More water?” 

Shiro smiled up at Rolo, “No I think we’re all good here.” Keith kicked Shiro under the table for good measure, and smirked when his brother winsed through his fake smile. 

Rolo barely raised an eyebrow at Shiro’s strained expression, “I’ll be back to check on you. Enjoy.”

As soon as Rolo was gone Shiro kicked Keith back playfully, “I take you out for breakfast and this is how you repay me?”

Keith pulled his legs up so he was sitting cross-legged on the bench, safely away from Shiro’s boots. “You deserved it. But, uh, thanks.”

Shiro rolled his eyes, “I don’t think I did, and your welcome.” Silence passed over the table as they both started in on their food.

Keith eyed the double stack of pancakes in front of him. Maybe Shiro was right, maybe he was eating his feelings.Because _damn_ that was a lot of pancakes. Keith reached over to grab the syrup and poured almost half the bottle on the stack. He cut a slice and stuffed it in his mouth, allowing the buttery, sugary magnificence to seep into his core. He was already feeling better. The hangry was real. After a few more bites of bliss he started to feel guilty for snapping at Shiro; he was only trying to help. Keith gulped down another bite.

”I’m sorry,” he whispered behind the fluffy tower of syrup and butter. 

“What was that, Punk? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of me being right.” Shiro smirked at him, eyes glinting. 

Keith gritted his teeth but he probably deserved that. He’d been an ass. “I’m sorry Shiro, I’m confused and worried and gah!” Keith slammed down his fork and went to rake his fingers through his hair but forgot he was still wearing the beanie. It ended up half off his head, caught in the hoodie of his jacket. Keith angrily tugged it back over his knotted hair, straightening it out and looked up at Shiro through short raven lashes. 

All of Shiro’s haughtiness melted and he leaned forward, a gentle smile on his face, “It’s alright Keith. What’s going on?” Shiro was such a sap when it came to his little brother.

Keith mulled over whether or not to lie about his situation, but one look at the sincerity in Shiro’s eyes made the decision for him, “I messed up, I think. Badly. With a friend of mine. Well, maybe more than a friend? Well, but probably not anymore, because I totally suck at this.” Keith’s words tumbled over themselves in a rush to leave his mouth. The feelings he’d pushed down since yesterday, bubbled to the surface taking over his actions.

“Woah, woah, slow down, start from the beginning. What happened that was so bad?” Shiro’s voice stayed calm and soothing, he slid his hand across the table, squeezing Keith’s trembling fingers. “Wow, are you okay?”

Keith picked at his chipped black nail polish on his other hand, one finger was already picked completely clean and he was working on his thumb now. Shiro’s hand radiated warmth into his chilled fingers. 

“I hurt my friend’s feelings. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t even know it was him. I just threw them away because I didn’t know what to do with them. It was just easier to throw them away.”

Shiro put on his dad face, the one he used when their parents put Shiro in charge and Keith refused to listen to him, “You threw away your friend?”

Keith rolled his eyes. Hard. “Oh, my god. No.”

“Okay, let’s start over. When did this all start?” Shiro’s not-quite-endless patience wearing thinner. 

“Um, two years ago, I guess.” Keith lowered his head and looked up through his lashes, he tried to tug his hand away from Shiro in shame only to feel his brother’s grip tighten, refusing to let go. “But I didn’t find out till a couple days ago.”

“Wow. Okay.” Shiro’s mouth formed a little ‘o’ of surprise before it snapped closed, his face turned serious and he leaned forward, “What happened two years ago that you didn’t know about?”

Keith chewed on his thumb, eyes darting around the table while he debated with himself. Finally he looked at Shiro, “Promise you won't laugh?”

Shiro raised an eyebrow and held up three fingers on his free hand, “Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a scout,” Keith chided, a half hearted laugh escaping without his permission at his brother’s antics.

“I could have been,” Shiro said haughtily, “And if I was, I would’ve been the best, so it counts.” Shiro cocked a smile and squeezed Keith’s hand in reassurance.

Keith hesitated for a moment, the white envelope weighed down his pocket, heavy with guilt. He tugged his hand free from Shiro’s grasp with a, “Fine, I’ll show you.” He shifted to the side so he could retrieved the letter from his back pocket. “I was planning on showing you, anyways.” He slid the unassuming envelope across the table. 

Shiro raised an eyebrow, reaching out to pick up the offered item with tentative fingers. Keith’s pressed down on the letter, not letting it go just yet, “Don’t open it, but you can look at it.” He slowly lifted his hand off the envelope allowing Shiro to pick it up. 

Shiro met his eyes and held them for a breath, then picked up the letter and turned it around in his hands. His brother’s eyes opened wider as he glanced at the back of the envelope. “It’s a love letter?” 

Keith nodded, “I guess, maybe.”

Shiro ignored the uncertainty in Keith’s answer, pushing forward with his line of questioning, “So you got this two years ago and you’re just now worried about it?”

Keith let out an irritated groan. He was trying so hard to be understood, and the constant missteps of his own combined with Shiro’s well-meaning if blundering attempts to clarify made him want to shut down and never speak again. Instead, he forced the words to leave his lips, “I’ve been getting them for two years. That’s just the most recent one.”

Shiro’s scrunched his eyebrows over his nose, pulling the letter closer to examine it, “So, do you know if the letters are from different people, or the same person?”

Keith rested his elbows on the counter and buried his face into both his hands before speaking a muffled, “I’m pretty sure it’s the same person.” He peeked out of his fingers at Shiro.

“I see.” Shiro’s face was neutral as he placed the letter on the counter sliding it back toward its owner, “So what did you do that was so bad?”

At this Keith completely crumpled, his hands folding in on themselves then crossing his arms to create a pillow on the table and burying his head in his arms.

“I threw them away.” He mumbled to the table. 

Shiro choked on his gasp and started coughing. Keith didn’t want to look at Shiro’s reaction, the sound told him everything he needed to know. Shiro was disappointed in him. 

“Wait, you threw away these letters for two years? You didn’t open any of them?” Shiro’s voice was high pitched in disbelief.

Keith groaned, confirming, “Yeah, for two years.” 

“Wow.” Shiro sounded stunned. 

Keith buried his face deeper into his arms, _Just kill me now and get it over with._

Pushing himself back to sitting, he leaned against the backrest. Keith was red from his neck to the tips of his ears, he could feel the heat steaming from his skin. He trained his eyes on his barely touched pancakes, avoiding Shiro as long as possible. 

Keith took a shuddering breath, gripping the edge of the table till his fingertips turned white trying to keep from falling apart, “I didn’t know they were from my friend, I thought they were different girls or something. They didn’t show up often. Just once every couple months at first. It’s only recently that they started to show up almost every week, sometimes twice a week.” He started to slowly rock back and forth in his seat, “I didn’t want to deal with coming out to a bunch of different girls so I just threw them away without reading them.” 

Keith’s eyebrows knitted together and his eyes started to burn as tears threatened to fall. Dark purple irises turned black and glossy. He blinked up to look at his brother, his vision watery and blurred, “Then the other day when I was at Lance’s, the day you picked me up for the car show, I saw them. The same envelopes, the same lame heart stickers.” One hand came up to pull at the hair under his beanie, eyebrows knitted together and eyes staring into blank space. His rocking became more intense, “Then Lance freaked out and tried to hide them, and that was when I realized, he was the one who’d been giving them to me. That I’d been throwing away his letters for _two years_.” Keith choked on the end of his sentence.

Keith jammed his knees into the small space he occupied, wrapping his arms around himself in a hug. He bit his lip _hard_ , trying to fight back the tears; he didn’t want to cry at IHOP with everyone looking at him. His breath shuddered with the strain of holding back the floodgate, hiccups racking his body. 

Shiro immediately launched into big brother mode. He grabbed the untouched letter and shoved it into one of Keith’s hands, slammed money onto the counter. Shiro slipped out of the booth and held out his hand to Keith. 

Keith’s hand trembled as it slowly unwrapped from his body. He kept his gaze trained on the floor, lashes thick with tears that refused to fall. Shiro gripped his hand and pulled him to his side, tucking him under his arm. He shielded Keith’s head protectively with his large hand, hiding him from any looks the other patrons might throw their way. He walked Keith out to the car, opening the passenger door and making sure Keith got in safely.

Keith was shaking, his vision tunneled in front of him, hyper focusing on the Honda logo in front of him. He felt the car shake as his door was slammed shut and felt it rock as Shiro slid in the other side. The car rumbled to life and Keith put his seatbelt on, mostly out of habit. A warm hand slipped into Keith’s and squeezed. 

“It’s okay, Keith, you’re safe. I’m here, go ahead.” Shiro’s grip on his hand tightened momentarily, thumb stroking in gentle circles.

That was all it took, a waterfall of hot tears rolled thickly down his cheeks. It wasn’t pretty. His nose ran and snot mixed with tears. He tried to wipe at his face but his sleeve could only do so much without tissues. Shiro still clinged onto his left hand and Keith held on tight to the only thing grounding him. 

Between hiccups and sobs Keith’s words exploded, all his fears and frustrations laid bare in his brother’s beat-up Honda, “I just.... I didn’t know, you know? I was so oblivious. I thought we were just _friends_. If I’d known, if I knew, then I’d never have done it. How much pain did I cause with how _careless_ I was? How many times did I throw away his feelings? How many times did I hurt him and then he just smiled at me like everything was _fine?_ ‘Cause I don’t know. _How many times_ , Shiro?” Keith whipped his head toward Shiro, not really seeing his brother, rage clouding his vision.

Keith was almost screaming now, waving his free hand gesturing at objects and events that existed only in his mind’s eye, “I don't know how many letters there were. And yet, _every day_ he still acted like my friend. He never got mad at me.” 

He sighed, going quiet again and slumping down in his seat, seat belt cutting into his neck, “And now that I know….” Keith paused, biting his lip and working it back and forth before he inhaled to continue, “I think...I think I like him, too.” There he said it. He said it and it was real.

He looked down and wiped at his nose uselessly on his already soggy sleeve, “But I’ve ruined it. I ruined it a long time ago, Shiro.” He hit the flat of his hand against the dashboard over and over, punctuating every word with a physical representation of his outrage, “Because I’m too goddamned _stupid_ to open a goddamn _letter_.” He sighed sitting back again and resting his forehead in his palm, “ So stupid.” 

“You are _not_ stupid.”

Keith dared to peek at Shiro through the slits between his fingers, his brother’s expression was open and caring. He could tell him, he was safe, “I...I asked him to write me one more, that’s the one I showed you.” His voice grew quiet, barely above a whisper, “But, what if it says how much he hates me for what I’ve done? I can’t read it, Shiro. I just can’t. I asked him for it. _I_ asked _him_ , but I’m too much of a coward to read it. What do I do?” Keith looked fully at Shiro who was gripping his hand roughly. 

Shiro didn’t answer right away, his face unreadable. Finally he turned to look at Keith and held out his other hand. Keith wiped his free hand on his jeans with a mumbled, “It’s really gross you don’t want to touch it. Trust me.”

Shiro made a noise of dissent and grabbed at Keith’s hand and held them both while looking directly into Keith’s eyes.

It was too much. Keith couldn’t look at the sincerity there, the love. He looked down at their clasped hands instead.

Shiro lifted both of their hands and used them to lift Keith’s chin so he was forced to look at him again.

“You are kind and caring and the coolest little brother anyone could ask for, and anyone would be lucky to have you. You can’t beat yourself up over the past, and you can’t blame yourself for things you didn’t know. But you _can_ do something about the here and now. The only question is, what do you _want_ to do?”

Keith was quiet. He gnawed on his lower lip as his eyes shifted between their clasped hands and Shiro’s face. “I don’t know what to do, but...I think I like him, Shiro..” 

Shiro pulled him into a hug. It was not the most comfortable and it was a little awkward with the cup holder between them, but the warmth filled Keith up till he was almost bursting. Shiro pulled off Keith’s beanie and ran his hand through his mussed hair.

“I think you know what to do. You’ve always done the right thing, even if it took you awhile to get there. But you always get there in time.” He could feel Shiro’s warm breath in his hair and the smell of cloves and mint filled his senses, with just a hint of bacon. 

Keith knew what he had to do, he just didn’t want to, “I’m scared though, what if...” 

“No matter what is in that letter, you still have me, you still have your family, and we will get through this together. But I don’t think a boy like Lance would do something as mean as write hate in a love letter.” Shiro ruffled his hair, making the already cowlicked and hat-ruined hair even worse.

Keith gave his brother one last squeeze before pulling away. “You’re right. You’re always right.”

Shiro smiled, “I know. And don’t you forget it.” Then he squeezed Keith’s hands, “Do you want to read it together? Or do you want to read it alone when we get home?”

Keith shook his head, “I can’t do it alone.”

“Okay, I’m here. Take your time. No matter what is in that letter, we’ll get through this together, right Punk?” Shiro smiled a lopsided grin, the one he used to reassure people. Keith hated that it worked on him. Scrounging up a little bit of courage he nodded. 

Keith let a weak smile spread across his face, his eyes still glassy from crying and his nose still running, “Yeah, together.” Shiro let go of his hands but placed his arm around Keith’s shoulders for support.

He pulled out the letter from his sweater pocket where he’d shoved it in their haste to leave IHOP. He still felt a heavy dread pressing in the pit of his stomach, but now he had Shiro. His big brother was there for him, he could do this.

Keith slipped his thumb in the opening of the flap and ran it toward the sticker, it popped open easily without ripping the paper. Inside was simple lined notebook paper folded into an intricate pattern with a tab that said “pull here”. 

Keith pulled the tab and carefully unfolded the paper. The letter was scrawled in Lance’s wide lettering in blue gel pen.

> Keith,
> 
> You’re an asshole. Go out with me?
> 
> -Lance

Keith guffawed; it was just so... _Lance_. After all that worrying, after all that stress, all of it flooded out of him at once and he laughed. He brought his hand to his forehead and clutched his stomach doubling over and full-on belly laughed.

Shiro was looking at him like he had gone mad. Between chuckles, Keith held the paper out to Shiro and his brother took it from him curiously. 

After a moment, Shiro joined Keith’s manic giggles with snorts and chortles of his own. They sat in the car, feeding off each other's joviality for so long that Keith lost track of time.

“This boy seems like a keeper.” Shiro smiled, handing the note back to Keith. “What are you going to do?” He folded his arms on top of the steering wheel, leaning against it and peered over at his little brother. 

Keith shook his head, clutching the note like a lifeline. “I don't know. I don't know what to do.”

“Do you like him back?” Shiro was using his ‘I know the answer and I’m trying to help you discover it for yourself’ dad-voice but Keith didn’t mind.

Keith silently nodded his head. 

“Do you think you'd like to be his boyfriend?” Shiro nudged him with his elbow.

Keith’s lips shrugged a smile, his shoulders mirroring the gesture. 

“Hmmm,” Shiro ruminated, considering Keith’s half-expression. “Well I think you know what you want to co. It's just a matter of how you want to to do it.” 

Keith nodded again, folding the note back into its intricate pattern and slipped it into its abused envelope. 

Shiro patted him on the back before turning the ignition and heading home. 

\---------

Keith spent most of his Sunday taking out the note, staring at it, and putting it away again. He was getting really good at it. Shiro already had the day planned with Allura, and his mom was still on her impromptu business trip, so it was just him and his dad. Unfortunately _Dad Classic_ had switched to _Dad Pro_ mode, which normally meant he’d be holed up in his office for hours until their mom dragged him out. With Mom away, Keith had only seen _Dad Pro_ creep out of his office once in search of food. It left Keith all the time in the world to brood. 

He shot a few texts to Pidge. He hadn’t expected a response, which made it okay when he never got one; Pidge was probably still grounded, anyway. Hunk had messaged to invite the group to lunch around eleven, but Keith was still pointedly ignoring the group chat. Despite the relief in reading the letter, he was still kinda scared of Lance. In fact, he turned off all notifications from social media on his phone and avoided them like the plague, worried that any activity would alert Lance to what he was doing. It was irrational, but Keith felt like hiding completely, even digitally. 

He'd have to confront Lance eventually, but that was a problem for tomorrow. Today was for procrastination and denial. 

The morning went by quick as molasses rolling uphill, but as soon as evening hit time decided to drink a double shot espresso. Before he knew it, his phone’s display clock read midnight and there was no time left to put off his thoughts. 

Keith pulled out the note again, smoothing it onto his pillow. His finger slowly traced the sloppy letters, sparkles from the ink rubbing off on his finger. He'd have to talk to Lance tomorrow, there was no getting out of it. And now that he was being honest with himself, he didn't _want_ to get out of it. 

Placing the paper beside his pillow, Keith checked his phone, setting his alarm and clearing his notifications. He left the group chat notifications up, ignoring them until he could speak with Lance. 

All other preparations finished, Keith plugged in his phone and turned out the light. This was it. Once he fell asleep it would be Monday, and there was no turning back. 

Keith closed his eyes and willed sleep to come to him.

\---------

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Groaning, Keith flipped over and blindly felt for his phone. Squinting through puffy eyelids, he tried to block as much light as possible as he fiddled with his phone. Keith jammed the large red button with his thumb three times before the incessant beeping finally ceased. 

Keith rubbed his face vigorously with his palms. He’d barely slept, his thoughts swimming with Monday. Throwing off his blankets, he sat up and hunched over on the side of his bed, resting his elbows on his knees. 

_I’m not ready to do this. Please, future me, invent a time machine and come back at 6:01am so I don’t have to live this day._ Keith waited a minute, then stared intently at his phone a while longer, just in case. The clock clicked over to 6:02am. Sighing in defeat, he pushed himself up to get ready for the day.

Keith pulled on his wine-colored skinny jeans and long-sleeved Rolling Stones shirt, checking himself out in the full-length mirror. Normally he didn’t care how he looked, but today he wanted Lance to care, so he put in a little more effort. This was his best outfit; the jeans clung to him in all the right places and the shirt was just tight enough to show off his arms. He tied his signature flannel shirt around his waist; it was still too hot at school for a hoodie. Besides, he liked the cold. 

Chewing his lower lip, Keith glanced down at his picked-at nails, then at the clock. Somehow he'd convinced Shiro to drive him to school today, so he had a little extra time. He _should_ have enough time to touch up the chips and re-paint the few nails that he'd completely stripped of polish. 

Keith took extra care with his drying nails as he cautiously slipped on his high-top converse and grabbed his backpack. He groaned when his right pointer finger got smudged during the process, but it wasn’t too bad. 

Standing in the bathroom Keith leaned into the mirror, turning his neck back and forth to examine his hair from every angle. Hats were against dress code, so no beanie would save him today. He picked at his hair a few strand at a time, trying to coax them into place. After several minutes of failed attempts it became clear that his hair was a lot cause today, so he grabbed an elastic band in a last ditch effort at order, pulling his hair into a sloppy bun. He praised the gods when it actually looked messy on purpose. 

He ran down the stairs--partially to preserve his newly perfected messy bun, but mostly to avoid a scolding if his Dad was up--and found Shiro in the kitchen eating a bowl of bran flakes sans raisins. 

“Mornin’,” Shiro mumbled into his bowl, his voice deep and gravelly from disuse. 

“Hey,” Keith greeted, pouring his own bowl of Cheerios. He grabbed a spoon from the drawer and shut it with his hip before climbing on to the stool next to Shiro at the kitchen counter.

“You ready for your big day?” Shiro was still mostly looking at his cereal but his voice was less rough than his first greeting. 

“Hm,” Keith hummed a noncommittal response as he chewed on his Frosted Flakes. 

They spent the rest of breakfast in silence; Keith enjoying the peaceful morning before faceing Lance at school and Shiro in quiet comradery. 

It wasn't until they were in Shiro’s car that the nerves hit him. He bounced his leg in place as his brain tried to over-plan his day. Keith didn’t realize his hands were compulsively gripping his jeans until Shiro’s fingers interlaced with his own, stopping his movement. It was warm and strong. 

“It'll be fine. He's the one that did all the hard work. All you have to do is say yes. You got this.” Shiro shot him a warm grin before turning his eyes back to the road. 

“I know. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm nervous as hell.” Keith picked at the nail polish that rippled from putting on his shoes that morning, little flakes of black fell into his lap.

“Stop flicking nail polish in my car,” Shiro scolded slapping at Keith’s hands. “Man, I don’t know if I’m ready for my little brother to be so grown up. You’re going to confess your feelings to your crush,” Shiro wiped at a fake tear, “and soon you'll be too cool to hang out with your lame big bro.”

Keith elbowed him gently, “I'm already too old to hang out with you.”

Shiro feigned offence, “I see how it is. You get a boyfriend and you just toss your bro aside.”

“I don't even have a boyfriend yet.” Keith rolled his eyes but his heart fluttered at the word boyfriend.

“Well, you will the next time I see you, so it counts.” Shiro shrugged.

Keith chewed on his bottom lip, “It’s not a sure thing, you know. He might have changed his mind already.” 

“If he's been crushing on you for this long, and he managed to finally ask your dense ass out after all this time, then I don’t think you should worry about his reaction. I think he’s the one who should be worried about your naive, idiotic brain.” Shiro shoved Keith’s head playfully. Keith swatted Shiro’s hand away and pulled down the visor to check his hair in the mirror. 

Shiro whistled low, “Wow, I knew you two were friends, but you really like him don’t you?” 

Keith pursed his lips, but then let out a half sigh, half laugh from between his teeth, “Yeah, maybe I do” He flipped the sun visor back up and sat back looking out the window.

Shiro turned into the campus and stopped in front of the main building, “Break a leg, Punk,” he said, giving Keith one last pat on the back.

Keith continued to chew on his lip as he gathered his backpack. “Thanks,” he muttered before sliding out of the car and slamming the door shut. He gave a small wave goodbye before trudging up the hill to the school entrance. 

Lance didn’t have a locker, something about his family not being able to afford the locker fee, and they didn’t have any classes together this year so Keith wouldn’t see him until lunch. He sat in first period waiting for class to begin, tapping his pencil impatiently. He pulled out the note and unfolded it, snickering at the simple letter. He still felt a bit foolish for making such a big deal out of this whole thing, his only consolation was that he’d done it in private with only his brother as a witness. 

Over the past two days Keith racked his brain trying to think of a way to reply to Lance. Everything from his own note, to talking with him at lunch, to walking home with him after school; in the end he decided to keep it simple. He took out his red pen, pulling the cap off with his teeth, and wrote a reply under Lance’s messy writing. He folded it up and slipped it back into its battered envelope.

\---------

Lunch came at a rush and before he knew it he was sitting down next to Lance with Pidge and Hunk across from them. 

Pidge picked their pizza off its bed of fries and slid the fries over to Lance, “Uh, I’m so sick of fries. When will they give us real food?” 

Lance’s eyes lit up, “You’re crazy for not liking fries, Pidge. They’re basically the potato’s highest form. Well, besides tots.” Lance picked up the tray, “Be right back, guys.” He scooted out of the bench and over to the condiment stand.

When Lance didn’t have a lunch, Pidge always seemed to hate fries a little more than usual. No one ever said anything about Lance’s lack of lunch, each of them just ended up with more leftovers than normal. Keith scooted a few chicken nuggets to the other side of his paper tray, saving them for the other boy. 

Lance slid back into his seat with his tray filled to the brim with ranch dressing, “Pidge, you out of purgatory yet?” Lance pulled a drenched fry from the pile and stuck it in his mouth, licking the excess sauce from his fingers.

Keith tried not to judge. He knew why Lance did it; ranch was free and full of calories. While keeping him company in the concessions line, Lance told him in confidence, _Condiments are sometimes the only food I get when I go out with my family. So, it’s more of a habit than an actual love for the stuff_. 

Keith snapped back to the present from Pidge’s loud exclamation, “Yes! My grounding has come to an end!” Pidge stood up to reach across the table and fist bump Lance, “and not a moment too soon.” Pidge smiled conspiratorially at Lance. 

“Uh oh,” Hunk shifted in his seat, “You don’t have another slightly illegal idea, right?” Hunk worriedly looked between Pidge and Lance.

“C’mon Hunk,” Lance exclaimed, reaching over the table to shove his friend, “it’s almost time for the senior prank! We gotta do something to leave our mark!” 

“Yeah, something better than filling the teacher’s lounge with balloons. What’s wrong with our peers?” Hands thrown in the air, Pidge scrunched an upturned nose, “They probably Googled senior pranks and then picked the tamest one they could find. Amateurs.” Rolling their eyes, Pidge pretended to gag on a short finger.

Keith listened to the easy banter between his friends; the playful back-and-forth was a welcome distraction. But he couldn’t settle down completely, not with Lance a few inches away, cocky smile showing off the glimmer of white teeth. His nerves felt like pin pricks, every inch hypersensitive to any movement or sound that came from the boy by his side. Cursing, he tried to pry his eyes away, but they were pulled like magnets to Lance’s crooked smile, his bright eyes, his muscles as they flexed when he spoke-- impossible. Hunk gave him a poignant look and he felt his cheeks burn as he quickly dropped his gaze. Examining the pile of fries and nuggets that lay untouched in front of him.

Lance puffed out his chest, “Me ‘n Pidge’ve been working on a program that’ll switch the entire school’s database with Jefferson High’s. Well, Pidge has been working on it, I just came up with the idea.”

“Pidge and I,” Keith corrected. Lance rolled his eyes without looking his way and everyone else ignored him.

“Hey, you’re helping,” Pidge smirked. “You’re my Monster dealer and snack gofer.” 

Lance brightened, “I’m so good at getting you Monster and always bring the best snacks!” He flexed his arms to show _just_ how good he was.

“The best.” Pidge smiled in agreement. 

Keith could feel Hunk’s gaze heavy on the top of his head, now he was sure that Lance had told everyone what happened. Keith felt outnumbered sitting at the brown lunch table. Did they all think he was horrible? Maybe they convinced Lance to give up on him?

Keith shifted on the bench, pinching a fry and rolling it between his fingers. Lance hadn’t looked his way since they sat down. Using one fry to shift the other grease-soaked potatoes around his tray, Keith listened to the others with half an ear. The conversation shifted from Pidge’s devious senior plot to a heated debate with Hunk about whether the blue wolf was better than the yellow wolf in Nultron. 

“Out of the two legs. the blue one is clearly better. She’s got _ice attacks_ , Hunk! You can’t beat ice attacks. That’s like, the best pokemon type.” Lance waved a ranch drenched fry in Hunk’s face before biting into it predatorily.

“Not even close, Yellow is way stronger! She can just go _bwow bwow_ and _whap_ ,” he slapped his hands together for emphasis, “and she’s fine! If Blue did that she’d be completely crumpled. As a leg, it’s more important to be strong!” Hunk flexed his thick arms posing in the yellow knight’s signature pose. 

“Blue is strong enough and more agile than Yellow, agility is just as important as strength.” Lance paused for a moment then corrected himself, “More important even! Blue is more of an all rounder than Yellow is.” Lance huffed, slamming his hand down on the table.

Keith normally stayed out of his friend’s debates, especially when Hunk and Lance got so heated. Well, normally he didn’t know what they were talking about. Apprehension and excitement wiggled its way up from his toes and into his belly. For once they’d picked a subject he could talk about, all he had to do was speak up. He thanked the stars that Shiro suggested they binge Nultron this weekend. 

Keith gathered all the confidence he could and casually added, “Blue is more of an all-rounder than Yellow, but if agility is more important-- then, Red is just as balanced as Blue _and_ has way more agility.” He smirked.

The whole table turned to look at him in stunned awe. Lance’s mouth hung open, unchewed fries visible in a mashed mess. Lance swallowed his mouthful, “Since when do you watch Nultron?” He lifted a meticulously shaped brow in his direction.

Keith shrugged, immediately regretting saying anything, “I binged it this weekend with Shiro.”

It was the first time that Lance acknowledged his presence, the other boy’s hot stare pinning him in place. A blush crept up to his ears, body betraying him. Lance laughed and shoved Keith playfully, “Not bad, mullet, how far did you get?”

“Middle of season two,” Keith mumbled to the table top, wiping his fingers on a napkin. Pushing his tray over to Lance, he silently offered the rest of his chicken nuggets. Lance gifted him with a soft smile and grabbed the tray from his still hovering fingers. They bumped lightly, and stayed unmoving against his for a moment too long before the proffered nuggets were pulled from his grasp. Lance dumped them unceremoniously into his pool of ranch.

“Ahhhh!” It came from Pidge, “That was the worst part, how could you just stop there?”

Keith quirked an eyebrow at Pidge, previous conversation forgotten, “Stop what?”

“In the middle of season two! That’s the _big battle_.” Pidge waved haphazardly at Keith, looking at Hunk in exasperation.

“Oh.” Keith thought back to the last episode they watched, it was a bit of a cliffhanger, “I don’t know, I fell asleep.” He lifted his eyebrows, and smiled weakly, “Wow, I didn’t know you guys were so into this show.”

It seemed like the whole table collectively rolled their eyes at him, “Yeah dude, we’ve only been talking about it for weeks. You just seemed to zone out when we did.” Hunk informed him.

It was true, whenever Lance and Hunk debated their pluthera of shows he always tuned it out. They were forever talking about one show or another, he wasn’t sure their conversations shifted to Nultron.

“Oh. Well, it’s good. I really like it. The red wolf is my favorite, but the blue knight has a charm to her that is really endearing.” Keith shrugged.

“Right?” Lance grinned at him, it was wide and showed off his crooked eye tooth. There it was, Lance’s true smile, not the cocky grin he normally wore. Keith felt his insides melting, but before he could have a full on aneurysm, Lance mercifully turned to the rest of the table, “See I told you, the blue knight is the coolest.”

Hunk crossed his arms and grumbled, “No one likes the yellow knight.”

“I didn’t say I _didn’t like_ the yellow knight, Hunk. I just like the _blue_ one better. And so does Keith. That makes two against one.” Lance emphasized his words with his fingers, exhibiting the numbers to the whole table in a flashy gesture. Satisfied, Lance let a cocky grin spread across his face and leaned on his left hand, his whole body shifting closer to Keith. The hand in question rested lightly on the short length of bench between them. Lance lolled his head to the left, shooting Keith a conspiratorial smile.

He couldn’t help smiling back, the corners of his mouth lifting ever so slightly in return. This was it, Keith had to do it, now. Lance’s smile filled him with fearless determination. Keeping his eyes locked on the other boy, he shifted his hand to his back pocket pulling out the same familiar envelope. Slipping it between his pointer and middle finger he slid it on the bench toward Lance until it bumped solidly into its destination. 

Lance looked down curiously, his eyes widening slightly when he recognized the little white envelope. Keith couldn’t read Lance’s expression as the other boy slowly inched his fingers across the expanse of wood and paper until they were resting on top of Keith’s. Lance’s hand felt icy and too soft. Pausing for a moment, Lance’s touch was feather light before he dragged his tan fingers across Keith’s pale ones, collecting the envelope in one smooth movement. He clutched the paper in his fist, crumpling it further.

 _Damn_. Keith let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His hand felt cold, tingling faintly where Lance’s fingers had brushed his skin.

If he wasn’t blushing before, he was sure as hell was blushing now, his cheeks suddenly overly warm and his long sleeved shirt feeling tight and restricting. He tugged at the hem, fanning his skin with his shirt.

After a moment he realized the table had turned silent. Looking up, he saw Hunk and Pidge staring at them with shit-eating grins. Lance shot both of his friends a look and made a cutting motion with his hand across his neck. 

Immediately, Hunk and Pidge jumped into a hasty conversation laughing fakely at nothing. Lance groaned and buried his head in his right hand. 

Keith tried his best to ignore what just happened, the feeling on his hand, and the churning in his gut-- instead he pretended to focus on the forced conversation invented by Hunk and Pidge. 

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Lance thumb open the envelope, a confused knot creasing his brows when he discovered his own letter inside. He shaded his face from the others while he struggled to unfold the note with only his left hand. He used his knees to hold the paper in place as he pulled the note open.

Keith tried to give Lance privacy while he read his reply, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He regretted what he wrote, worried that his reply wasn’t good enough. Raw fear laced through him. His whole body tense as he waited for a reaction.

Lance’s smile turned soft and he bent to put the note in his side pocket of his backpack. He leaned back, resting his hands on the bench and looked up at Hunk, making a comment that Keith couldn’t hear over the cacophony in his head.

Lance’s fingers slowly inched their way across the bench again, his fingertips bumping lazily into Keith’s. A tentative finger lifted and softly traced a line across Keith’s knuckles as if asking permission. 

Keith lifted his fingers and Lance took the opportunity to lace their fingers together, entwining their hands out of sight from their friends.

Keith thought he was going to die. His whole body was tense. He couldn’t hear anything besides his own breathing or see anything but their hands entwined above the ugly brown bench. He was sure that their friends knew exactly what they were doing, he was totally giving it away. Lance continued to trace the top of his hand with his finger, soft jolts of pleasure tickling their way up his arm. 

Keith slowly relaxed at Lance’s administration and settled into a easy conversation with his friends. 

They didn’t stop holding hands until the warning bell rang, everyone jumping up and running to their next class in a panic. Pidge shot him a knowing look and Hunk gave Lance a thumbs up causing them both to blush and lower their eyes in unison.

Lance pulled his hand away, fiddling with his backpack. He seemed to take longer than usual to pack up his things and Keith wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere. Damn class, damn school, it wasn’t as important as this.

Keith looked Lance in the eyes, cobalt shimmering in the fluorescent with no trace of the storm that once raged in their depths. He realized all at once that he’d gotten used to Lance’s eyes filled with trouble and now that they were clear as a summer spring he drowned happily in their depths. Lance continued to fiddle with his bag. 

Scooting as close as he dared, Keith reached out lightly touching Lance’s shoulder. The other boy quickly flipped around and they came nose to nose. Panic clenched his chest at their close proximity and scooted back in a frenzy.

He coughed, his heart beating rapidly against his chest, echoing in his ears, “Lance?’

“Yes?” Lance swallowed his cheeks turning a dusky coral.

He looked down at the hole in his jeans and picked at it, “I... Would you.” He coughed again, eyes flashing up at Lance, looking at him through his lashes.

Lance looked like he was basking in Keith’s nervousness.

Keith took a deep breath and rushed his words together, “Would you be my boyfriend?”

Lance laughed a light and sweet sound. He nodded, “Yeah Keith, would you be mine?”

That surprised Keith a bit, but everything that Lance did seemed to be unpredictable. His reply was a breathy, “Yeah.” 

“Good, it’s settled.” Lance leaned in until Keith’s world was filled with blue eyes and dark lashes.

Keith closed his eyes on instinct, inhaling sharply as soft fluttering kiss brushed his cheek. He could smell the berry scented face cream Lance used and it made him feel light and airy. A small sigh escaped Keith’s dark lips at the overload of sensations. 

“I’ll see you after school?” Lance whispered still too close for Keith to fully function.

A split second too late he blurted, “Yeah, after school.” He felt like he was moving through a dream, everything was slow and heavy and too good to be true.

The late bell rang. 

Lance shot him one more too-close smile and he was gone. 

Coming to his senses, Keith cursed as he gathered his backpack and sprinted to his class. A stupid grin stuck itself to his face, his emo heart giddy and fluttering like a goddamn Katy Perry song. He was twitterpated beyond belief and, for once, Keith didn’t care.

Lance was his boyfriend.

**Author's Note:**

> Lance held the paper under his desk in class, his finger traced the letters. Red cursive sat innocently under blue print, “Of course I will, Shithead.” He smiled. 
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> \---------  
> Edit: There is now artwork for this fic!!
> 
> [Cute comic by Kelpiehunterkai!](https://kelpiehunterkai.tumblr.com/post/169494554212/this-is-an-illustration-i-did-for-glassalices)  
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> [Lance finds Keith with the note in his room :x](https://theoreolover1.tumblr.com/post/169494929307/finally-done-fanart-for-red-hearts-on-white)
> 
> [Thank you to r-i-v-e-r](http://r-i-v-e-r.tumblr.com/) for the beautiful gif! To see my boys come alive like that brings me back from death! <33
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> [The note itself](http://yuzuling.tumblr.com/post/165344016978/thank-you-to-everyone-who-is-reading-my-humble)
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> [How to make your own note!](http://yuzuling.tumblr.com/post/169588458448/how-does-one-make-the-cute-envelope-with-the-pull)
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> 
> Yay! It's done! Thank you so much for reading!!!┏( ﾟωﾟ)ゝ Super duper thanks to [Starbuck-7](http://starbuck-7.tumblr.com/) for editing and editing and editing until it was perfect. This thing has been edited to death for over a month, but if there are still mistakes those are my fault and not hers. I'm so sorry! 
> 
> This fic was inspired by [this picture](https://odacue.tumblr.com/image/160951956251) and [this picture](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/e6/4e/e3e64e7700c2d9e0ad502b3ac5b3cd18.jpg). I tried to find the original artists for both and couldn't track them down OTL, so if you know please tell me! I'd like to give credit to the artists for their inspiration! (Update: first picture has been found! Link is updated, still searching for owner of 2nd picture!)
> 
> [Stalk me on Tumblr!](http://yuzuling.tumblr.com/) Because I love you!
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> Comments and Kudos are placed on my bookshelf so I can look at them forever. I really love to hear from you and I reply to all my comments <33


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